She tore off a length of paper toweling and set it on Clare’s desk. The cassette and plastic bag went carefully on top. Now she needed another clip, or some more fishing line. Her eyes roved vaguely along the narrow counter that ran down one side of the room. Its surface was covered with an astonishing variety of instruments—Clare was something of a pack rat where evidence collection was concerned. In addition to boxes of black, gray, red, and white fingerprint powder, there were several cameras—some handheld, some mounted over slides; a microscope; three infrared lights cocked at varying angles; calipers in graduated sizes; wood frames for molding footprints and tire treads with plaster of paris; a sketchpad; a boxful of loose vials with disposable eyedroppers in the lids; and three rolls of screaming yellow police barrier tape.
And these were only the supplies he kept at the station. Never mind the back of his van.
All this, Merry thought, for a murder a year Poor old Clare. He’s wasted on us provincials.
She found the roll of fishing line next to the fingerprint powders, and cut a length. Another instant, and the cassette was suspended from one of its reel openings next to the matchbooks. A drop of seawater gathered at one corner, trembled, and fell dismally to the linoleum floor.
Merry glanced at her watch. Two o’clock, and she was due back out at the high school to interview Dave Haddenfield around four. She was suddenly aware of a vast and unrequited hunger. Where to find lunch, after two on a Christmas Stroll weekend?
A simple association of ideas suggested the Ezra May-hew House. But first, there were those matchbooks of Jay Santorski’s, hanging under her nose and delightfully dry. They presented a considerable temptation. Clare could hardly object if she examined them under his infrared lights for an instant, and copied out the ghostly numbers thus revealed. Her stomach growled insistently. Without pausing for debate, Merry unclipped the match-books, snapped on the infrared, and threw the room into darkness.
One number had the Boston area code, 617. She could leave that for Clarence to trace. The other began with the Nantucket exchange—228. Merry copied it down on a piece of Clarence’s notepaper, turned off the infrared, and clipped the matchbooks once more to the fishing line. Then she discarded her plastic gloves and left the evidence room.
“Gerri,” she said to the uniformed officer behind the 911 response bank. “Can you plug a number into that thing and give me the address?”
“Sure. It’s designed to work the other way around—”
“I know how it’s designed.” So that when somebody dialed 911, his home address immediately flashed across the screen, with a locator signal on an electronic map.
Gerri held out her hand for the slip of paper. “Give me a minute.”
Merry stood by her side and watched as Gerri manipulated the panel’s buttons. A few seconds later, a red light flashed out on the locator screen.
“That’s 87 Sparks Avenue, Mere—the condo complex. Phone’s registered to a Jennifer Bailey.”
It was like Matt, Merry thought irritably, to have left his phone in his ex-wife’s name three years after the divorce. That way, when he missed payment, the bill collectors harassed her. But what was his phone number doing in a drowned scalloper’s pocket?
“Thanks, Ger.”
She walked the short distance to her father’s office with more than simple hunger churning in her stomach. The idea taking form in her mind was too disturbing to ignore. Her father’s reticence about Bailey’s disappearance—his entire demeanor since Merry’s return from Connecticut—shouted an obvious warning. She was about to tread on some heavily corned toes.
But the Chief, as it happened, was nowhere to be found. His secretary, Janelle Taylor—a slight woman in her mid-forties with hair the color of gingersnaps—was barring the door to his empty office and looking singularly harassed. In front of her stood a stocky young woman dressed in pine-green corduroys and a cranberry-colored pullover that reached to her knees.
Christmas colors, Merry thought irrelevantly.
“Why can’t I wait?” the girl cried in exasperation.
“I told you—Chief Folger is tied up all afternoon with the Stroll.” The righteous indignation in Janelle’s voice suggested to Merry that her father was sampling some Christmas cheer somewhere with an old friend.
“Then what about his daughter? When’s she going to be back?”
“I have no idea. I am not the detective’s assistant.” Janelle reached behind her and pulled John Folger’s door firmly shut. Then she slid smoothly behind her desk and picked up her reading glasses. “If you would like to leave your name and number, perhaps someone can return your call on Monday.”
“Oh, I’ll bet,” the girl retorted, flaring. “I have a Monday afternoon deadline on this thing. Do I have to get my editor or the publisher to call?”
“Excuse me.” Merry walked purposefully toward the small cubicle that held the secretary’s desk. “I’m Detective Folger. Can I be of any help?”
“Oh, thank God,” the girl burst out. “Somebody intelligent for a change.” She proffered a hand, and Merry took it. “I’m from the I & M. I’d like to talk to you about the death of Jay Santorski. You’re responsible for the case, right?” She pulled open a large shoulder bag and reached distractedly for a notebook and pen.
“I’m not sure I’d call it a case,” Merry replied genially. “You wouldn’t be Sue Morningstar, by any chance?”
Pen in hand, the girl looked up. Some of the frenzy in her face softened and died away. Under the fall of silken brown hair, her eyes were blotched and reddened with old tears. “Yes, I would.”
Merry looked over at Janelle Taylor. “I take it Dad’s not going to be back for a while.”
“I really couldn’t say.”
“Then if you don’t mind, I’d like to use his office. It’s a little more private than the conference room.”
Janelle shot to her feet in dismay. “Detective—I really don’t think—”
“Fifteen minutes, max. Then I’m off to lunch at the Mayhew House. Can I bring anything back for you?” Merry threw the secretary her most winning smile.
“Well… maybe some chowder and a fish sandwich?”
“Done.” Merry threw open her father’s office door with one hand and ushered Sue Morningstar inside with the other.
“So,” the reporter said, “you’re the famous Merry Folger.”
“Famous?”
“Around the I & M, at least. I covered the Roxie Teasdale story last spring. You were pretty impressive, Detective.”
You don’t know the half of it, Merry thought. She looked at the girl settling into the Chief’s uncomfortable guest chair. Around twenty-four, if Seitz’s notes were correct, and still sporting her college puppy fat. But her brown eyes were direct, and her chin was square and determined; nothing in her manner suggested immaturity. “Are you here as Mr. Santorski’s roommate, or as an Inky reporter?”
“Both.” Sue Morningstar’s lips compressed in a thin line. “I asked to write the story on the drowning—we’d have covered it in any case, and as Jay’s friend I owe it to him to get the piece right. But Barry Cohen called me after you left the house this morning. He says you think Jay died of an overdose.”
Oh, Christ. He would. “That’s something of an overstatement, Miss Morningstar,” Merry said evenly. “We’re merely trying to account for Mr. Santorski’s drowning. As you probably know, he was said to be an excellent swimmer and an experienced waterman.”
“You’re saying he must have been drunk, or something, to ride into the Easy Street Basin? I know. It doesn’t make sense. Jay was an athlete—he was in incredible shape. There’s no way he could have just drowned. But why drugs? Why not alcohol?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
The frustration returned to the girl’s face. “Did you find something that led you to think it’s an overdose?”
“Look—well just have to wait for the autopsy findings, I’m afraid. To say anything else—pa
rticularly in the newspaper—would be pure speculation. And grossly unfair to your roommate.”
Sue Morningstar’s eyes had fluttered involuntarily at the word autopsy. “You’re putting me off.”
“Not at all. I’m telling you the truth.”
“If it’s just a drowning, Detective, why did the Nantucket police put you—their star investigator—onto the case?” the reporter burst out.
“I’m hardly a star, Miss Morningstar. I just happen to be the only person available right now. And whenever there’s an unexplained fatality, we open a file. This is strictly routine. If you want to interrogate somebody, try your roommate, Dr. Cohen. He’s given you a false impression, I’m afraid.”
The girl’s stocky form sagged, defeated, into her chair. “I should have known Barry would exaggerate,” she muttered. “He always loved to shit on Jay.”
Merry leaned across the desk. “Why, exactly?”
Sue gave a dismissive bark of laughter. “Jealousy. Jay was everything Barry will never be. It was painful just to see them in the same room.”
“Did that make the atmosphere in your house … somewhat tense?”
The reporter’s eyes narrowed. “Are you interviewing me, now?”
Merry shrugged. “I was hoping you could tell me something about Jay. It might help us learn why he died.”
Sue thought for a moment, her eyes fixed blankly on the middle distance. Then she drew a shaky breath, filled with the echo of tears. “Jay was a remarkable person. I know that’s easy to say when somebody’s dead, but in this case it’s even true. He knew intuitively how to help people. He could sense what made you tick, and what drove you crazy, and he always tried to bring out the best in you. Around Jay, I felt… confident. Happy. As though I were pretty and smart and the best person he could possibly be with. Nobody could make me feel like Jay. Nobody ever will again.” The strong chin quivered, the brown eyes crinkled, and suddenly Sue Morningstar dissolved in tears.
Merry cast about frantically for a box of tissues, and came up with a small crumpled packet in her father’s bottom drawer. She offered them hurriedly to the reporter. “I’m so sorry.”
“I have to say that all the time, too,” Sue retorted angrily. Her voice was like a lash. She accepted the tissues and pressed one against her nose. “I’m sorry. The stock phrase for bereaved survivors. God, I hate journalism. Brutality pretending to be sensitive. Exploitation dressed up as public interest. It sucks, and so do I.”
“Like detective work,” Merry told her, “the ugliness is an occupational hazard. If you can still recognize the truth, you’re doing fine. When you cease to notice, it’s time to get out.”
Sue nodded abruptly and blew her nose. Merry waited for the girl’s breathing to grow calm again. Then she said, “Barry Cohen didn’t like Jay Did he ever try to throw him out of the house?”
“Unfortunately for Barry, Jay was a model housemate. Clean, quiet, and always ready to cook dinner for anyone who was home. Which was rarely Barry. He lives at the hospital.”
“I understand Barry broke up a practice session one night.”
“Harley’s band, you mean? I guess you already talked to him. Yeah, that’s Barry. Mr. Killjoy.”
“Did that make Jay angry?”
“He never even got angry, much,” Sue said thoughtfully. “And when he did, it was at inanimate objects—ATM machines that didn’t work, engines that failed, traffic jams. Never at people. Certainly not Barry.”
“Jay just took his parties elsewhere.”
“I suppose.”
“Did he party a lot?”
She hesitated. “What’s a lot? I mean, that’s a subjective term.”
“Did he drink heavily, or use drugs recreationally?”
“I thought you were waiting for the autopsy results,” Sue said bitingly.
“I am. I’m talking about what you saw, as someone who knew and … loved … Jay.”
The girl flinched at the word, and looked away. “He’d go out for a beer with a bunch of scallopers once in a while. But I never saw him completely plastered.”
“Scallopers. Owen Harley?”
She nodded.
“How close do you think the two of them were?”
“I never really thought about it. They seemed to work well together, and Jay loved Owen’s band. That had a lot to do with Margot, of course.”
“Margot—Harley’s singer?”
“Jay was obsessed with Margot.”
If so, Merry thought, then he was the second person to be described that way. Howie Seitz had used the same word for Owen Harley.
“Why?”
A simple question, which Sue Morningstar might have answered thoughtlessly. Instead, she chose her words with care. “I don’t want you to think that what I’m going to say springs solely from jealousy. I was jealous of Margot, and still am, if it comes to that. But I think I understood the dynamic between them just as clearly as if I’d never cared about jay at all.”
“Go on,” Merry said.
“Margot had some kind of hold over Jay. I’m certain of that.”
“You mean—blackmail?”
“No. I mean that she inspired in him some sense of obligation. I don’t know what it was. He would never tell me. But he knew that I saw their relationship for what it was. Calling it a sexual attraction was too simple, although there was plenty of that, God knows. Margot can set fire to a room just by walking into it.” Sue hesitated, then shook her head. “It goes back to what I said earlier. That Jay knew how to help people. He wanted to help people, Detective. It was how he defined himself, I think. But it went even deeper with Margot. He was out to save her life, and she didn’t want to be saved.”
“You don’t like her, do you?”
“That’s the least of what I think of Margot. If I could get her off this island tomorrow, I would.”
“Why?”
“Because she destroys the people she needs the most. And she uses everybody. Do you think Jay meant to her one-tenth of what he meant to me? Not even remotely. The only person Margot St. John cares about is Margot St. John. She is passionately involved with her own pain. She’s made a kind of altar to it.”
Sue’s voice had a sharp edge of bitterness.
“And nothing is ever enough for her, Detective. If you want to talk about risk, talk to Margot. She pushes the envelope everyday.”
“Did you ever see her use drugs?” Merry asked.
Sue Morningstar gave her a long, perceptive look. Then her eyes widened with comprehension. “Oh, no,” she said despairingly. “Not heroin. Not Jay.”
Chapter Fourteen
Merry found Laurie Hopfnagel, the manager of Ezra’s, sitting in a small, elegantly papered closet furnished with a desk and computer. Hopfnagel was tall and lean, with the sleek hair and shrewd eyes of a domesticated ferret. She rose and extended her hand when Merry’s name was pronounced by a helpful underling; but Merry sensed the cordiality was forced.
“You’re here about Jay, of course,” Hopfnagel said briskly. “Such a tragedy. But your colleague, Officer Seitz, learned all we had to tell yesterday afternoon. I’m not sure what more I can do for you, Detective”—she glanced at her watch—“and I’m afraid this is one of our busiest days.”
“I won’t take much of your time.” Merry looked about for a chair, but there was none in the tiny space; so she stood firmly before the restaurant manager’s desk and took out her notebook.
Laurie Hopfnagel subsided into her chair. “Very well.”
“Officer Seitz reported that you believed Mr. Santorski was stealing tips.”
Hopfnagel’s roving gaze abruptly stilled. “I did. Yes. I’ve informed the proprietors of as much. But now that Jay’s dead, I’m not sure what you can do.”
“If you can prove the claim, you might be able to recover the sum from his estate,” Merry said smoothly. “Roughly how much money do you believe disappeared?”
The woman hesitated, then looked down at her folded h
ands. “It’s very hard to say, of course. I’m not really certain.”
“But you’re confident enough of Jay’s culpability to have reported him to the owners?”
“Yes. They were aware of the discrepancies. There had been … complaints. From the other workers. About the disappearance of certain sums.”
“I see,” Merry said. “When did you inform the owners of your suspicions?”
“Yesterday evening.”
“After Jay’s death.” After he was unable to refute the charge. Merry began to see a method in Laurie Hopfnagel’s madness. If she had stolen the money herself, the late Santorski was a convenient scapegoat.
“I wasn’t really certain before,” the woman said, “and with Jay dead, I never can be, can I? And I’m sure the proprietors won’t want to pursue the matter so far as to place a lien on his estate. That would be … in very bad taste, don’t you think?”
“Taste? I really couldn’t say.” Merry watched her wood-enly. “Just what exactly focused your attention on Mr. San-torski, Ms. Hopfnagel?”
“He was … secretive. A loner. Out for what he could get.”
“Really?” This was a decidedly different picture of Jay from the one drawn thus far. “Did he ever seem unwell? Or as though his judgment was impaired?”
“Impaired? You mean … less than sober?”
Merry let Laurie Hopfnagel pursue that thought for herself. She watched the woman consider and then reject it—almost regretfully, it seemed.
“Jay was in excellent physical condition. That’s what makes his death so odd. He was the last person I’d have thought would drown. Do you think he was drunk, then?”
“We can’t make any sort of statement about his physical state until we have the results of the autopsy.”
“Of course.” The shrewdness had returned to the small black eyes.
“When did you first notice that money was missing?”
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