Merry found David Murphy sitting at the dining room table with a legal pad in front of him and a cell phone in his hand.
“I’d like to ask a few questions, Mr. Murphy.”
“I have one to ask you, first.” David set down his phone. “When are you people going to finish here, and leave us in peace? We’re grappling with a major family crisis, not to mention the demand for information from the journalism community. I have difficult and complex responses to formulate for the public. I can’t believe the insensitivity of the Nantucket Police, trailing yellow crime scene tape all over the house—after the interrogation you conducted yesterday drove my father to suicide. We’ve limited the official statement of his death to accident, of course, but with evidence vans and police SUVs in the driveway, rumors are bound to fly all over the island. You’ve even delayed the process of my father’s funeral, by refusing access to his clothes. I’ll be drafting and filing a complaint with your chief, Detective. Suicide is horrible enough for a family to bear; but your incompetence, callousness, and ineptitude have destroyed our privacy, too.”
“People with privacy concerns rarely give their cell phone numbers to the press.” Merry pulled out a dining chair and sat down. She lifted her laptop onto the dining table and opened it deliberately. She had removed the sterile jumpsuit, gloves, booties, and shower cap she’d worn in Spencer Murphy’s bedroom. It occurred to her that she was dressed inappropriately—in red shorts and a navy blue and white T-shirt dusted with rhinestone stars. Her Fourth of July Parade wear. The dunk tank and face painting booths of the morning seemed to have existed in another country.
David Murphy bared his teeth. “That’s exactly the kind of remark that will get you fired.”
Merry glanced at him over her laptop screen. “We have reason to believe your father was murdered, Mr. Murphy, sometime between last night’s dinner and this morning’s discovery of his body on Steps Beach. Could you tell me, please, when you last saw him?”
“Murdered?” he scoffed. “That’s absurd. Nobody would kill Dad.”
“Somebody did. And the working assumption is that he or she is staying in this house.”
“Impossible. Do you know what you’re saying?”
“That your father was killed by one of his family? Yes, I’m aware of the implications.”
David reached for his cell phone. “I’m calling the police station right now and getting somebody out here who knows what they’re doing. This is outrageous.”
“Do you always browbeat people when you dislike what they say?”
“Yes,” Kate Murphy interjected. “It’s his worst habit. It rarely works. But he never seems to learn from his failures.”
She was leaning in the doorway behind her ex-husband. He turned his head and glared at her; but Kate did not drop her gaze. “I found blood in Spence’s closet,” she said.
David set down his cell phone. “What?”
“Or rather, the dog did. The police think it was from his head wound.”
“But he died on the beach!”
“No,” Meredith said, “it’s probable he died in his bedroom, from a deliberate blow that fractured his skull, and was later carried down to the beach.” Her eyes flicked to Kate Murphy’s face. “Would you be available for a few quick questions in private after I’ve talked to Mr. Murphy?”
It was not really a request, and Kate understood it was also a temporary dismissal. “Of course,” she said, and walked swiftly away from the dining room toward the stairs. Merry waited until she heard the woman’s footsteps die away at the top of the steps. She had no desire to let Kate know her ex-husband was under suspicion.
“Now, would you tell me, please, Mr. Murphy, what time you last saw your father?”
“Around seven-forty-five,” David said. Disbelief still warred with anger in his face. “He’s been tiring early. Dinner seemed to exhaust him this weekend—too much conversation flying around the table that he couldn’t track. I’ve gotten in the habit of walking him to his room as soon as the plates are cleared.”
“How did he seem last night?”
David shrugged. “Confused. Tired. He asked the same question repeatedly—about some charity project he thought Kate and Andre were working on together. Which shows you how mixed-up he was. Andre’s the charity guy. Kate just lives off her windfall from the divorce.”
“How long did you stay with him?”
“About ten minutes at most. I helped him take off his shoes. Handed him his pajamas. Made sure he had a glass of water by his bed.”
“What shoes was he wearing yesterday?”
“His Sperrys. They were the default pair.”
“Did you leave them on the floor, or put them in his closet?”
“I honestly don’t remember. Probably the floor.”
“Did you two discuss anything else?”
“Not that I recall.”
“How did you leave him?”
“He was sitting on the edge of the bed staring blankly into space. I said good night and closed the door, hoping he’d actually get into his pajamas and go to sleep.”
“Unlike Saturday night, when he left his room and overheard you in the main hall.”
“Yes. But it was impossible to watch him constantly,” David said.
“You didn’t consider locking him in his room?”
“The door locks from the inside.” He was frowning now.
“You could have thrown the lock and left by the French doors.”
“Which would then have been left open. Allowing him to wander . . . Ah.” He had clearly discerned the trend of her questioning. “The bedroom door was locked this morning, wasn’t it? And the French doors wide open. No, Detective, I didn’t leave them that way.”
“And once you’d put your father to bed?”
“I came back through the house, fixed myself a vodka tonic, and went up to my room to work.”
“Roughly what time?”
“Say, eight o’clock. I stayed until Laney called up from the bottom of the steps that the fireworks were starting.” He pursed his lips grudgingly. “She seemed to think I ought to watch.”
“Any idea when that was?”
“Not really. A little after nine, I’d guess, but I honestly didn’t look at the clock. I went out to the lawn and stood there until the fireworks were done.”
“Was anyone else with you?”
“Everyone.”
“Immediately? All at once? For the entire time?”
He knit his brows in an effort to remember. “It was dark, of course, and we were all looking out toward the sky over Jetties. I know Elliot was standing near me for a while. He told Andre to go get Dad—I asked him not to disturb him, but Andre disappeared into the house. When Elliot says jump, Andre asks how high.”
“Your daughter? Her mother?”
“Kate was standing near Andre—they had plastic chairs but didn’t bother sitting in them. Laney wasn’t with us most of the time,” he said. “I think she was hiding under the trellis arch, at the top of the beach steps.”
“So even though she wanted you to see the fireworks, she didn’t watch them herself?”
“She preferred to pout. I was there to be her audience.”
Merry lifted her brows and waited.
“I suggested she move in here to take care of Dad. She didn’t like the idea.”
“Does she have training in caregiving?”
“How much experience do you need to live with your own grandfather?” he exclaimed. “It’s not like she’d have to cook or keep house. Roseline would do that.” The annoyance died out of his face. “Anyway—it doesn’t matter now. She can go back to Boston and waste more of her life.”
He’d given his daughter an implicit motive for murder. But he seemed unaware of that.
“Elliot probably told her to call me down for the fireworks,” David added. “He has this thing about group activities. That’s why he wanted to get Dad out on the lawn, too. He likes to sustain the illusion that we’re one big happy family.”
“But you’re not?”
“Now that Dad’s gone, I wonder if we’ll ever bother to assemble again.”
“How long were you outside?”
“Maybe half an hour.”
This tallied with Merry’s own sense of the Jetties fireworks program. “You were on the lawn the entire time?”
“Yes.”
“No bathroom breaks or trips to the kitchen to refresh your drink?”
“I only had the one vodka tonic.”
“And after the fireworks ended?” Merry asked.
“I went to bed. I read for a while. I put my light out when I heard Elliot and Andre come up the stairs. That was around eleven.”
Merry’s fingers stilled above her keyboard. “Did you hear any unusual noises during the night, Mr. Murphy? Either inside—or outside—the house?”
“None.” He gave a half-smile, stifled as soon as it dawned. “I was dead to the world until Elliot knocked on my door, a little after eight this morning.”
“You got up right away?”
“Immediately. He said Dad was missing. I told El I’d start walking toward town—I thought I might overtake Dad on foot. I figured he’d head for the Wharf Rats. But the clubhouse was closed. I went all through town, up and down Main and its cross streets, thinking Dad might be caught in the holiday crowds, but of course I didn’t see him. By the time I got back here, Andre had found his body.”
“And Elliot had discovered the supposed suicide note on the typewriter.” Merry lifted her gaze from her laptop screen and studied David Murphy. “What do you make of that note, now we know that your father was murdered?”
David pressed his fingers wearily to his eyes. “I suppose he thought it would convince the police that Dad had killed himself.”
“He? Who is he, Mr. Murphy?”
“The murderer. Whoever it is. I’m from a generation that still uses masculine generic pronouns.”
“So you weren’t suggesting that your brother, Elliot, killed your father?”
“Of course not,” David said sharply.
“But you are suggesting that the note was deliberately torn out of the book and placed on the den typewriter as false evidence of suicide. That is one possibility; the other is that your father did this for reasons known only to himself. If the murderer left the note, how do you think he—or she—knew that Spencer had written that particular phrase in the notebook? Is anyone in your family in the habit of reading Spencer’s diaries?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Do you read them, sir?”
“No, Detective.”
“Where are your brother and Mr. Henrissaint now, Mr. Murphy?”
“Out. Elliot’s highly sensitive, Detective. Grief requires him to retreat to a trendy bar where he can drown his sorrow in fifteen-dollar cocktails.”
“You might try his cell phone.”
“It’s on his charger in the kitchen. He wanted to be unreachable.”
“Then would you locate your daughter for me?” Merry asked. “I’d like to talk to her outside, on the lawn.”
She deliberately stood near the arched rose trellis that straddled the gate to the steps—where, if David Murphy was to be believed, his daughter had spent the duration of the fireworks show, staring down at the tangled growth that sprawled between the cliff and the dunes, where her grandfather’s body was later found. Merry had left the living room’s French doors open. Laney Murphy came through them and stopped short on the deck.
Merry turned and smiled at her.
Slowly, Laney crossed the unkempt lawn.
“You wanted to talk to me?”
“I did,” Merry said. “Tell me about this morning. When did you get up?”
Laney blinked rapidly, hesitating. She had been expecting a different question, Merry thought. Something about a bloody shoe.
“I woke up around seven. Maybe a few minutes before, actually—like, six-fiftyish. I haven’t been sleeping well here.”
“Waking up during the night?”
“Kind of. Just really light-sleeping, you know? Like, aware that I’m just dozing while I dream. My mind is going constantly.”
“And that’s not how you usually are?”
“Not at all.”
Merry waited. The girl did not disappoint her.
“I’ve been really creeped out,” she said in a rush. “What with my aunt’s body lying on the roof for, like, over a month and my dad saying that Grandpa poisoned her. Accidentally. With stuff I brought and left in the house! I mean, Jesus. Between us we killed her. And I didn’t even know she existed!”
“Your parents never mentioned her?” Merry turned back toward the beach, staring out over the dunes to the harbor. No Peter knifing the waves today; she wondered with a pang what he’d been doing since she’d deserted him on Main Street this morning.
“I know, right? And my mom definitely liked her. I mean, my mom likes most people, she’s not incredibly anal like Dad, but even Grandpa said so. You’re the only one who liked Nora besides me. Weird, right? And then—” She stopped short.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Laney said.
Something, Merry thought. “So yesterday morning you got up and came downstairs.”
“Yeah. I like having this place to myself. Before everyone else is up. It’s incredibly beautiful with the silence and the view of the ocean and the sun coming up over the town.”
“Yes. You’re lucky to be able to spend time here.”
“I know. It’s so unspoiled. Thank God the wind farm project died—can you imagine those turbines sitting right out there, an industrial plant in the middle of the Sound?”
“I think we’d have gotten used to it,” Merry said. “On hazy days, they might have looked just like a ghost fleet. Turbines are probably inevitable at some point, you know. Clean energy.”
“Maybe,” Laney said uncertainly. “But it’s our view. Grandpa hated the wind farm; he wrote editorials about it every year, in the Inky Mirror. Although now . . . I hope Dad sells Step Above. I really do. I think it’s incredibly gross that people have died here. I’d never sleep. Would anybody want to buy a place where there have been bodies lying around, though?”
Merry glanced at her. “Most of the houses on this island are centuries old. Countless people have died in them.”
“I guess. Right.”
“What did you do when you got up?”
“So.” She drew a deep breath. “I made some green tea. Then I came out here to do some yoga—it’s really centering for me, first thing in the morning, especially outdoors in the natural world. Plus, my muscles hurt from all the gardening we’d done. Pulling weeds really strains the hamstrings.” She glanced over either shoulder, as though suddenly perplexed. “That’s weird. The wheelbarrow’s gone. And the shovel. I guess Dad must have put them away. We meant to use them today to compost, but then Grandpa changed everything.”
“Okay,” Merry said. “Roughly how long were you out here?”
“I wasn’t,” Laney explained. “I got outside, unrolled my mat—my yoga mat—and saw Grandpa’s doors wide open.”
“The French doors to his bedroom.”
“Yeah. I didn’t want him coming out and disturbing me while I practiced, so I walked over to, just, you know, shut the doors—thinking he probably wasn’t even in there—and he wasn’t. So then I freaked out, because I know he’s been wandering and I knew he hadn’t been in the kitchen when I came down, because his coffeepot wasn’t on the stove, so . . .”
“You went looking.”
“I woke up Mom,” she finished.
“Any idea what time this was?”
“Maybe seven-twenty.”
“And then?” Merry asked.
“Mom searched a little, and then she and El woke up the rest of the house. Dad was really pissed off, because he knows Grandpa’s been loose before and he thought somehow I should have stopped him—like I was even up when he left—”
“He was probably just mad at himself,” Merry suggested. “Your grandfather already went missing once.”
“Maybe,” Laney said uncertainly. “Dad’s always mad. That’s why I was not about to move in here, like he wanted, to look after Grandpa. It’d just be an excuse for Dad to blame me all the time.”
“You told him no?”
Laney flushed. “Not yet. But I was going to. It’s just—I’m between jobs right now. I used to be with Teach for America but the conditions in my classroom were really unsafe and I decided not to go back after the first year. So I’ve been leading classes at a local center.”
Merry wondered what Laney considered unsafe. Hot glue guns? Sharp scissors? Or sharper kids? “You’re teaching yoga?”
“Yeah. And although he totally disapproves, Dad’s basically supported me. Financially. Not emotionally. Which he suggested he was no longer going to do, if I didn’t move in here with Spence.”
“I see. Will your grandfather’s death change that?”
Laney looked bewildered. “Well, it’s not like he’s going to need me here anymore. Even Dad can’t make me live in an empty house.”
“No—I meant, do you think your grandfather left you any money? That might allow you to be more independent?”
The girl’s expression changed. Her eyes widened and a vivid expression of hope flooded across her face. “Omigod,” she said. “I never even thought of that. Do you think he really might have?”
“I have no idea. The possibility didn’t occur to you?”
“Not in a million years,” Laney said fervently.
So she hadn’t killed him for her inheritance, Merry thought. Had she killed him to escape penal servitude on Nantucket?
“When did you last see your grandfather?”
“At dinner. Not that we really talked. Ever since I found out how Nora died . . . that Spence may have been responsible . . . it’s been awkward.” Laney hesitated. “And then there was this really weird thing that also gave me the creeps.”
“At dinner?”
“Before. Spence was out here in his plastic chair while Mom and I grilled burgers and generally got dinner going—Dad is useless in the kitchen and Andre has been doing way too much, particularly when he’s not even family yet.”
“Yet?”
“He and Uncle El are getting married.”
“Ah.” Merry filed this away. Elliot’s inheritance would eventually be joint property. “Your grandfather was out here?”
“Yes. Andre had mixed him a G&T, which was probably a mistake, because once he drank a little he started talking in this confused and rambling way. All about Aunt Nora and how she’d found out the truth.”
Merry’s hackles rose. Careful, she thought. “The truth?”
“About the past. That’s what he said. Mom sent me into the kitchen and took away his drink. And he didn’t bring it up again during dinner. But it got me thinking. That Aunt Nora had threatened him somehow. Everyone always talks about how close they were, but his voice was different last night. Distant. He was trying to think through something complicated. And he was doing it out loud. That was how his mind worked, lately—he verbalized his thought process. And you could hear how fragmented it was.”
Laney was young, Merry thought, and less than articulate—but she wasn’t stupid.
They were both silent a moment.
“Is that possible, Detective Folger? I mean . . . is it possible . . . that he killed Nora on purpose?”
“I think maybe you watch too much TV.” Merry kept her voice light.
“My dad agrees with you.” Laney smiled faintly. “I told him Grandpa had been talking about Nora. Dad brushed it off, but he went to see Grandpa after the fireworks were done. I think he was worried about him.”
“Even though Andre had just checked on him?” Merry’s interest was deliberately casual. David Murphy had never mentioned seeing his father after eight o’clock the previous night. Sometimes people told stupid lies to the police out of fear. Sometimes they were deliberately concealing evidence.
“Dad doesn’t trust easily. He likes to handle things himself.” Laney glanced over Merry’s shoulder. “There’s Andre now.”