10.

Can You Get Scrod Here?

But I wasn’t going to the moon, I was going to Boston to see Stewart and Libby Leverton. I knew from my online research that they lived in a row house on Beacon Hill that was featured in an article about historic homes in Boston Magazine, and that, according to stories in the Boston Globe, they, like Henry, were active in the local charity scene. At first glance, it seemed unlikely they needed inheritance money. But a detective can’t rely on first glances, so I was on a flight from Fort Myers airport to Logan airport.

It was cold in Boston when I arrived, thirty-one degrees with snow flurries. Having checked the weather in advance, I brought my leather bomber jacket. With the collar up, I thought I looked too cool for school. I’d been to Boston once before when I took my daughter, Jenny, to visit colleges during her senior year in high school. Ultimately she chose Stanford. Weather might have been a factor. She must have liked the Northern California climate because she also chose Stanford Law School. She now was an associate with the largest law firm in Chicago.

Jenny said that, while on a campus tour of Boston College, her student guide told her a Harvard joke: A businessman flew into Logan airport for the first time and, on the way to the city, asked the cab driver if he could get scrod in Boston, scrod being a generic term for a small cod, haddock, or any other local white fish. The driver, who was a moonlighting Harvard student, replied, “Yes, sir, you certainly can get scrod here, but I’ve never heard it referred to in the pluperfect tense before.”

Jenny got the joke and explained it to me. It had been a long time since I studied the conjugation of verbs at Saint Francis High School, where the nuns rapped our knuckles with a wooden ruler for giving wrong answers, and sometimes just because they could.

My Boston cabbie was clearly not a Harvard student. He was a beefy guy with a ruddy face and bulbous nose, and he was wearing a Red Sox ball cap. He looked to be in his late fifties. Just for fun, I asked him if I could get scrod in the city. He said, “Yeah, sure. I recommend Legal Sea Foods.” I guess he didn’t know his colleague, that moonlighting Harvard student.

I checked into the Hyatt, went to my room, and called Libby Leverton. She answered on the third ring and I said, “Mrs. Leverton, this is Jack Starkey, the detective from Florida. We spoke on the phone earlier about the death of your uncle, Henry Wilberforce.”

She hesitated, then said, “And I told you I know nothing about that. Is there some reason you’re calling again?”

“I’m in Boston,” I told her. “Better to talk about that in person.” As with Scooter, I wanted to check out her facial expression while I questioned her.

She agreed to meet me for lunch, suggesting, coincidentally, the Legal Sea Foods restaurant at Copley Place.

It was chilly and windy, but I walked to the restaurant from the hotel instead of taking a cab because I needed the exercise. I got directions from the desk clerk, who warned me that Boston streets were convoluted, gave me a map, marking the route with a red marker pen, and said it was lucky I wasn’t going to try to drive there on my own because I might never arrive. That reminded me of the Kingston Trio song about Charlie, who got lost forever while riding the MTA.

The desk clerk’s map was clear. I arrived at Legal Sea Foods on time, at noon sharp, went inside, and approached a woman seated alone in a booth. She was pretty and well put together, with short dark hair with streaks of grey. She was wearing a pink sweater, accented with a string of pearls and matching earrings, jewelry like that of Leila Purcell, chairwoman of the board of the Miriam Wilberforce Art Museum. I guessed that women of Libby’s and Leila’s social class wore pearls like California beach boys and girls wore Oakley sunglasses.

“Mrs. Leverton?” I asked.

“Yes, and you must be Detective Starkey,” she answered.

I slid into the booth and said, “I’m investigating Henry Wilberforce’s murder.”

I watched her face closely. Her eyes widened, she gasped, put one hand on her chest, and said, “His murder? Oh, my god … you told me he was dead … I assumed it was because he was so old … how … where?” she asked.

“He was in his house in Naples, Florida,” I told her. “During the night, an intruder broke in and shot him.”

Libby teared up, took a handkerchief from her purse, and blotted her eyes, being careful not to smear her makeup. Either she didn’t know about the murder or she acted in local playhouse productions.

“Do you know who did it?” she asked.

“Not yet,” I told her. “Can you think of anyone who might want to kill your uncle?”

Without hesitating, she said, “Oh, Lord, no. Uncle Henry is … was … a very good man.”

Out of left field, I asked, “How is your husband’s business doing?” Thinking she might be caught unaware and let slip a motive for murder.

“What?” she replied. “Stewart’s business? What can that have to do with my uncle’s … murder?”

“I like to gather all the background I can,” I said.

For example, did she or Stewart have a hit man in their contacts list.

The waitress arrived. Libby ordered a small salad. The restaurant did have a burger for me.

When the waitress departed, Libby said, “You were asking about my husband’s business. Stewart is doing very well. His company is the biggest commercial developer in the Boston area.”

“Interesting,” I said, and it was, because it might mean that they didn’t need Henry’s money. Or it might not, given the ups and downs of the real estate development business. And it wouldn’t be unusual for a man to keep a business problem from his wife so that she wouldn’t think less of him. Whenever I failed to close a case, I didn’t tell Claire.

Libby asked for details about my investigation, which I explained as we finished lunch, including the possibility of a professional assassin. She listened, shaking her head, tearing up again, and repeating her assertion that her uncle had no enemies. At one point in my narrative, she asked, “What do you mean, professional assassin?”

“A person who kills people for money,” I explained.

She shook her head and said, “What a sad world we live in, Detective Starkey.”

She seemed sincere. By the time we finished lunch, I was pretty much convinced that Libby was innocent. I didn’t yet know about her husband, Stewart. Alan and June Dumont were better suspects at that point, if only because they’d been so elusive with me. I’d circle back to the Levertons later, if necessary.