Inspector Specter, page 18
I’d told Natasha that I was a friend of Lieutenant McElone’s (which was true, if you believed Malcolm) and that I’d known her father (which was true, if having met him twice before he’d died and three times after counted as having “known” him) and that I was trying to piece together the circumstances of his death. That part was true no matter what.
“My dad and mom got divorced five years ago,” Natasha was telling me. She’d offered me a cup of tea, but I figured I could go downstairs to Ruthie’s if I got peckish and opted to pass. “I guess I knew things weren’t good, but I was only thirteen, and I didn’t want to understand. You know how it is.” Unfortunately, I did. Melissa had cried a lot when Steven and I told her about the divorce, and it took about six months of talking with me and a therapist to convince her she had no blame in our marriage ending. I was still working on convincing her I didn’t have any blame either, but that was more difficult, because even I didn’t completely believe it.
“How harsh was it?” I asked, sounding like I was setting up a joke on an especially bad late-night TV show. Trying to smooth over my clumsy language, I quickly added, “I mean, did they ever learn to get along?” Better, but not much.
Natasha brushed at her eye for a moment but still looked very composed. “Not really,” she said. “I lived with my mother most of the time through high school. That was part of their settlement; I don’t think Dad liked it, but he knew that being a cop made it harder for him to be a single parent. Then in the last year or so, Mom started to complain about the child support checks. They were supposed to continue until I was out of college,” she said. “That was part of the agreement, too. But Dad said his finances were tight, or at least that’s what Mom told me he said. When I asked him, he told me he was sending the checks like he always had and didn’t know what she was talking about.”
Since I knew there was at least one pretty hefty deposit in Martin Ferry’s bank account, his claims of poverty were a little suspect. I would ask him about that when I saw him again. Or if I had any luck at all, I’d get McElone to ask him. I’d decided now that she’d put me through so much by disappearing, I was no longer feeling so charitable as to spare her the suspicions about her ex-partner.
“Was your mother really angry?” I asked.
Natasha absorbed that for a beat, and then her eyes narrowed to slits—the way her father’s had when I’d suggested something he found absurd. “Are you asking me whether I think my mother killed my father?”
That’s exactly what I was doing. “No, of course not,” I said. “I’m wondering about his level of stress, whether he felt pressure from her about the money.” Nice recovery, huh?
Natasha didn’t think so. “I see, so you’re asking me whether I think she drove him to suicide.” This interview wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped, and I’d come in with pretty low expectations.
“No.” This time, I really hadn’t been suggesting that. “It’s just not coming out right. I do think someone murdered your father, but given his line of work, the law of averages says it’s probably more related to his job than his personal life. So I’m sorry if it sounded like I was making accusations; I wasn’t.”
Her face had changed into that of a little girl, and a sad one. “My father was murdered? The police said it was a gun accident.”
“Did you believe that?”
She looked away from me. “I wanted to. But I didn’t. He never was careless with his weapon, not ever. There’s no way he’d ever leave it loaded or not secure it before he put it away. I knew. I just didn’t want to know.”
“So let’s try to figure out who killed him,” I suggested. “Did he tell you much about his work?”
Natasha stood up and started tidying up the room. Her avoidance tactics could mean that she was thinking, or that she was hiding something. I chose to believe the former. “He didn’t really talk about his job that way to me, you know? He took me to Take Your Daughter to Work Day and things like that, but he wouldn’t tell me the scary parts; he didn’t . . . he didn’t want me to be worried about him.”
“So you don’t know what he was working on when he died?”
She shook her head. “Not specifically. Every once in a while he’d get a phone call when I was spending the weekend at his apartment, but he never told me who it was, just business, he said.”
“How did he act after those calls?” I asked. It was a Paul-type question, although we hadn’t discussed this possibility precisely, because we didn’t know the scenario would come up. It was the kind of thing he’d want me to ask.
“Like himself. He sounded, I don’t know, almost mad when he was on the phone with whoever it was, but once he got off, he went back to being Dad. I really didn’t think that much about it.” There hadn’t been that much untidy about the room to begin with, so Natasha had to stop straightening now. “You sure you don’t want a tea? I could put it over ice.” The apartment was not air-conditioned.
“Why don’t we go downstairs and get something?” I countered. I felt like I should be buying Natasha a cold drink.
We went down to Ruthie’s and ordered an iced tea for Natasha and an iced coffee for me. I got an everything bagel, too, because this was a new bagel place to me, and it’s my sworn duty as a connoisseur to pass judgment on every unfamiliar establishment I encounter. (The bagel was very good, for the record.) We sat down at a table, and I asked her, because I was now officially out of ideas, if she knew much about Lieutenant McElone.
“Anita?” Everybody seemed to be on a first-name basis with the lieutenant but me, unless you asked her husband. “She was my dad’s partner for a few years. Now she works in Harbor Haven, I think. She came by after Dad died, just to visit, you know. I think she asked some questions, but I wasn’t really hearing anything just then.” She stared down into her glass of iced tea.
“Did she say anything about investigating what happened to your dad?”
Natasha shrugged. “Maybe. If she did, it wasn’t registering. I was in denial.”
* * *
Elise Cranston Ferry lived in a single family house in Rumson. It was one of the smaller homes on the street, but considering that people like Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen (the patron saint of New Jersey) have owned places in Rumson, being one of the less ornate places in the neighborhood was hardly a serious problem.
By Bruce’s or Billy’s standards, Elise’s house was a shack. By mine, it was a very comfortable size for most normal people and maintained within an inch of its life. The paint job was fresh, the shutters sparkled, the windows were gorgeously clean, the roof probably wouldn’t need replacement until Melissa was leaving medical school (a mother can dream) and the landscaping was downright impeccable.
I started to dislike and mistrust Elise immediately.
Still, after Natasha had called her to vouch for me, Elise had agreed to talk to me and ushered (welcomed would have been overstating it) me into her home once I identified myself at the front door. I’d walked up to the most adorable porch in history and been careful not to get the freshly painted floor planks dirty. We peasants have such unkempt feet.
“You have a lovely home,” I began, which was code for How the hell can you afford this, and why would you need child support from your ex-husband the cop? Code is helpful, but it’s not always completely pertinent to your intentions.
“Thank you,” Elise said, indicating I should sit on the very tasteful sofa in her living room. I chose a side chair instead, as sofas are a little too “company” for someone asking questions about someone’s murder. Or at least this one was.
She didn’t say anything else and seemed to be awaiting my first question. She sat down on the sofa herself, as if to show off how much better it was than the chair. It did look very comfortable, but the chair wasn’t bad, either. “Did you move here immediately after your divorce?” I asked, keeping up with the “lovely home” theme.
“Oh no!” Elise seemed to think that suggestion was hilarious. “I couldn’t possibly have afforded a house in Rumson on Martin’s salary, and he was one of those old-fashioned types who think it’s a bad reflection on a man if his wife is working. No, I moved to an apartment in Belmar, third-floor walk-up, after we split up. It took me two and a half years to get here.”
“How did you manage it?” That seemed like a fair question, and Elise, who wasn’t the least bit condescending (to my disappointment), took no offense as far as I could tell.
“I started my own business with some of the money from the divorce settlement,” she answered. “We sold the house we were living in, and I took my half of the money to start up a soup delivery service.”
“A soup delivery service?”
Elise smiled. “That was the reaction I got from banks when I tried to get a loan. Yes. I thought it was the kind of thing that could work. It’s a cold winter night, you get home from work, you don’t feel like cooking, but boy, wouldn’t a nice hot bowl of soup be perfect? So you get on the phone or online, order it up, and it shows up piping hot at your door in the time it takes to change your clothes and set the table. Not bad, huh?”
In this air-conditioned room, it sounded great. Outside in the summer heat, I was betting the lure of steaming soup wouldn’t be quite as strong. But mostly, I was shocked that there was a food delivery service—apparently a successful one—I’d never heard about. I was clearly slipping. It was a negative result of all this home cooking Melissa had been doing lately.
“Not bad,” I echoed. “You’ve obviously done well.”
She waved a hand; I had not yet truly grasped the enormity of her accomplishment. “I started working out of my own kitchen in Belmar, driving everywhere myself for six months, until I could hire a kid who had a car. Now I have five running kitchens in the area, and I employ thirty people.” Clearly, there was more in her soup than lentils—she’d struck gold.
“That’s great,” I said. How to segue, how to segue . . . “So after your divorce, you made quite a bundle. Did that mean Detective Ferry wasn’t paying alimony anymore?” As smooth a shift as in a ’49 Studebaker in need of a ring job.
Elise’s face darkened at the mention of her ex-husband. I have an ex-husband, and no doubt I don’t look pleased when his name comes up, but this was actually a little bit scary. She went from the proud business owner to the Grim Reaper in under a second.
“Detective Ferry paid alimony until the day he died,” she answered. “No matter how much money I made, I was owed restitution for the years I wasted on him. And then he stopped sending child support for Natasha, and I was about to serve him with papers when he got his brains blown out.” I felt it best not to mention that Ferry had been shot in the midsection.
“I know what you mean,” I lied. “My ex is often late with the child support. After what he did to me, that takes some nerve.” To be completely honest, what The Swine did to me was sleep with another woman, which in the scheme of things was atrocious but not actually done to me. One rationalizes.
“Nerve!” Elise seemed to think I was excusing Martin of something, but I didn’t know what. “Martin Ferry was a husband like King Kong was a headwaiter.” That didn’t make any sense, but there was no time. “He never spent any time with me. He was always out on a case, getting snitches to talk to him, spending time in the most hideous places. The man was a boarder in his own house. I’m not sure his daughter could’ve picked him out of a standing lineup.”
That wasn’t what Natasha had told me, for the record. She remembered Martin always taking time to play with her when she was little, and while he was “obsessed” with being a cop, he listened to her when she had a problem. It was clearly another Martin Ferry that Elise was describing.
Saying that to Elise would not help me, so I didn’t. “Do you have any idea who might have been angry enough with your ex-husband to shoot him?” That was, after all, what I was really here to find out.
Elise sort of rolled her eyes and gave me her best long-suffering look. “I was angry enough,” she said, “three years ago. Not now. I wasn’t angry enough to shoot him now, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s not what I’m asking,” I said. That was what I was asking. “Right now my first priority is actually trying to locate Lieutenant McElone, who was last known to be digging around in Detective Ferry’s death—”
“What do you mean, locate Anita?” Elise said, suddenly concerned. “Anita’s missing?”
It was interesting to me how everyone who’d known both McElone and Ferry seemed to have much stronger, and warmer, feelings for McElone. Except Lay-Z. I didn’t know Martin Ferry terribly well, so I had an excuse, but even then, I’m fairly certain that McElone wasn’t even on my holiday-card list.
I’d have to make a mental note to rectify that situation. If I ever saw her again.
“Her husband hasn’t heard from her for a few days,” I said. Maybe getting Elise upset would speed up the process of getting some information here. “And I was working with her on something, so it’s odd that she hasn’t been in touch. Do you have any idea where she might go if things were tough?”
There was no hesitation. “Have you checked her bungalow in Point Pleasant?” Elise said. “Martin told me that when a case was really bothering her, and she really couldn’t crack it, Anita would go to a bungalow she had in Point Pleasant. It was like her place to think, I guess. So maybe she went there.”
Suddenly I knew where my next stop was going to be.
Twenty-three
Except, I didn’t go right to Point Pleasant. There just wasn’t time before the afternoon spook show, and I did, after all, have to start watching the baby I was sitting, paying some attention to my own daughter, and running the guesthouse I’d spent pretty much every cent I had buying and renovating.
Also, I wanted someone to come with me when I went to McElone’s bungalow. In case I found . . . anything.
Paul listened to the voice recordings I’d made at all my interviews for the day while I checked on the rest of my family and our youngest guest. Mom informed me that Dad had gone on another Maxie quest, although everybody’s favorite poltergeist, once again using the “visiting my mom” dodge, had promised to be back in time for the afternoon performance.
Oliver was, as Mom had told me when I came home, obviously tired of this whole crawling business and was channeling his energy into the idea of standing and moving at the same time. He hadn’t actually conceived of walking yet but clearly understood it had something to do with feet. He was staring at his own, no doubt wondering why they hadn’t gotten the idea yet.
Wendy had come over to visit Melissa, and they were treating Oliver like any eleven-year-old girls would, as a remarkably interesting toy. Since he didn’t really have to do anything to maintain this status, Ollie was being good-natured about it, which is another way of saying he hadn’t noticed.
“He’s trying to get the doll,” Wendy said, pointing at Oliver’s toy Big Bird. Mr. Bird inhabited the low table in the den and Ollie was propped up against the sofa, and his head positioning and eye movements showed he was trying to figure out how to navigate the distance, which was at least three feet. This was a conundrum for Oliver.
“It’s not a doll,” Liss corrected her. “He’s a boy. It’s an action figure.” They had a good laugh over that.
Paul drifted in from the movie room with the voice recorder in his pocket. “The only lead we seem to have on Lieutenant McElone is this bungalow in Point Pleasant,” he said. Paul needs a little help with his segue skills.
“Do you think she’s there?” Mom asked him.
Wendy looked up, startled by the question, and saw Mom looking at what she would consider to be a spot just over the piano. She looked at Liss, who said simply, “Paul,” and nodded. They went back to hovering over Oliver, ready to catch him if he stumbled. So far, the job was easy because Ollie hadn’t tried to move yet.
“If she has gone to her hideaway, it answers one question and raises any number of others,” Paul answered, not acknowledging the exchange between the two girls. “It’s one thing for her to ignore your texts and calls, Alison, if she’s stewing over the case. But it’s something else entirely for her to uncharacteristically cut off contact with her family. That’s very troubling.”
“So I have to go to Point Pleasant. I’ll call Malcolm and see if he wants to meet me there. I wish you could come with me, Paul.”
Paul, who was trying to light the chandelier with his pinkie, answered, “So do I.”
“I’ll go,” Mom offered. I was a little reluctant, since Mom has a tendency to embarrass me on investigations, mostly by letting everyone know she’s my mother. You never caught Philip Marlowe dragging his mom along on a case. On the other hand, he might have, if he’d had my mom.
“Meanwhile, we have made some progress in the files Lieutenant McElone kept on the flash drive,” Paul said. “Maxie’s not back yet?” He looked around to confirm her absence, then added, “I’ll be right back,” and vanished into the ceiling.
Before any of us could comment, Stephanie and Rita entered through the beach doors, having cleaned off their feet with a hose I keep on the deck. Wet feet I don’t mind on my wood floors; sandy ones made scratches. A little sand coming into the house is inevitable—this is a shore town, after all—but I appreciate the effort of the guests to keep the place from becoming a beach all its own.
They seemed agitated. “Rita saw the hat on the beach again,” Stephanie announced. “And I saw it, too!”
Mom agreed to stay back with Oliver because there wasn’t time to pack him up, while the girls and I hustled out the beach doors and followed Stephanie and Rita onto the beach behind my house.
