Mulch Ado about Murder Read online

  “Right. Of course, he seemed nicer in the earlier days of their relationship. I was at their wedding, and Nickie was happy with him. He adored her, too.”

  “Did you believe him today?” Cam asked.

  Bobby waited a moment before speaking. “He was very convincing.” He paused again. “Actually, I did believe him. In recent years I’d only heard what Nickie told me. What he said today doesn’t change that she was unhappy with him.”

  “I’m sure it doesn’t.”

  “And you know, we can never know what really goes on inside a relationship. So, yeah, I think he is devastated by losing her.”

  Chapter 11

  Where in the world was Ellie? Cam milled among the spectators on the grass next to the high school track at two that afternoon. She couldn’t spy Ellie’s dad, either. The girl’s mom rarely went out to events like this. Her MS kept her confined to a wheelchair, which didn’t play well with a grassy field.

  Many dozens of teens in the various uniforms of their schools occupied the area in the center of the track and warmed up in clumps on the other side. Westbury’s colors were green and white, but that didn’t help Cam locate Ellie, since almost all the girls in those colors were also slim and wore ponytails. A half dozen boys jogged slowly around the outside lane of the track. A group in red and white sat in a circle, stretching in unison to the instruction of a girl in a red headband. A couple of girls in orange held long poles and repeatedly raced up to the beginning of the area in front of the high bar, stopping before vaulting themselves up and over onto the big landing pillow. All the activity looked chaotic, but Cam knew from her own high school track days that they had a schedule, timers, and league observers.

  A coach with a bullhorn announced that the boys’ mile would begin in five minutes. Good. Maybe the girls’ mile would be next. Cam strolled down along the track until she neared the finish line. The sky was still gray, but the temperature had warmed to the seventies. Not very good running weather, as it turned out. She felt a tug at her elbow and looked down to see two farm volunteers who had ended up becoming good friends with Cam and with each other.

  “Lucinda, Felicity!” Cam exclaimed. “What are you both doing here?” She sat on the ground in front of them.

  Lucinda grinned from where she sat in a portable camp chair. “Hey, fazendeira. I could ask you the same thing.” Her Brazilian friend always called Cam by the word for farmer in Portuguese.

  Felicity piped up from her chair next to Lucinda’s. “Lucinda said she was coming, and I didn’t have anything else to do this afternoon. I thought it’d be fun to watch some young people again.” She’d retired from teaching high school English at Westbury High not long ago.

  Cam smiled at both of them. “And I’m here because Ellie’s running the mile for Westbury.”

  “Cool,” Lucinda said. “My niece already did the long jump and she’s in one other event. Maybe it’s the mile, too. She goes to Ipswich High, so she’s wearing orange.”

  “That’s right, I forgot your brother and his family are in Ipswich now. And your mom moved here, too, right?” Cam asked.

  “Sure did. Mãe doesn’t speak a word of English, but that doesn’t stop her.” Lucinda’s brown eyes sparkled and her black hair curled in a cap all over her head, a new shorter do for her than previously.

  “What grade is your niece in?”

  “Tenth. Her mama had to work, so I said I’d come watch her.”

  “Smart of you to bring a chair,” Cam said, pushing up to standing so her legs wouldn’t cramp. Fighting off a cold as she was, she didn’t want to get a damp rear end from sitting on the ground.

  Lucinda pointed to a cylindrical green bag on the grass. “I got another one. Thought Mãe was coming, but she decided to go play bingo with her friends instead.”

  “Thanks.” Cam extracted the chair and unfolded it. She sat and sneezed three times in succession into her elbow.

  “Bless you,” Felicity said.

  Lucinda said something that sounded like “Sow-oo-gee” after each sneeze.

  “What does that mean?” Cam retrieved a tissue from her bag.

  “It means ‘I wish you health.’”

  “Thanks. I need it.”

  Two girls in Westbury uniforms jogged by. “Hey, Ms. Slavin,” one called. After she detoured over to give Felicity a high five, her friend did, too.

  “Go get ’em, girls,” Felicity said as they jogged off. “I had both of them in the creative writing club a couple of years ago. One’s a poet, one was writing a dystopian novel. Dystopia is big with the kids these days.” She watched the runners with wistful smile.

  “Sounds like you miss being around teenagers,” Cam said. She wasn’t surprised that the cheery Felicity had a close relationship with her students.

  “I do.”

  Several dozen boys, two or three in each of the ten uniform colors, positioned themselves in at the starting line, one behind the other by school. Cam remembered from her own track days that the top runner from each school took the initial lead in front of his teammates. A few guys jogged in place with knees coming up nearly to their shoulders. An extra-skinny kid in a crimson and gold uniform with an intent look on his face shook his shoulders, hips, feet.

  Cam widened her eyes and smiled when she saw Ellie’s boyfriend, Vince Fisher, in green and white in front of the other two boys wearing the same uniform. Senior Vince had had a tough time in the fall, and Cam was glad to see him participating in track in his last season at Westbury. When the couch announced, “On your marks,” the boys all half crouched, leaning over with one foot forward and the ball of the other foot anchored in the track behind them.

  And they were off. Classmates cheered, and cries like “Tigers rule!” and “You can do it, Brandon!” rang out. When Cam heard a familiar voice call out, “Go, Vince!” she finally spotted Ellie, almost directly across the track from her. Ellie faced away from Cam, her blond ponytail bobbing as she followed the progress around the track with her face and body. When the pack came around again, Vince was in third place. Ellie jumped up and down. “You got it, Vince!” she shouted.

  Cam waved and caught Ellie’s attention. The girl’s eyes flew wide open and her mouth widened in a smile. She waved back, and then focused on the race again.

  Three more laps and it was the home stretch. Vince was even with the guy in blue and white, sprinting for the finish. When Cam jumped to her feet, Lucinda did, too. “Yay, Vince!” Cam called through cupped hands. He put on a final burst of speed and finished one stride ahead of his competitor.

  A cheer went up from the parents on the sidelines and from Vince’s classmates. He staggered to the infield and stood panting, hands on his knees. Ellie ran over to him and gave him a high five when he stood again. The bullhorn blared, “Vince Fisher wins for Westbury in four minutes twenty-eight seconds. Girls’ mile is in five minutes. Girls’ mile, please assemble.” Vince gave Ellie a quick hug before she set out on a warm-up jog around the track.

  “That was a great race, wasn’t it?” Cam said to her friends.

  “Vince is fast,” Felicity said

  “And more important, determined,” Cam added. “So much of running is mind work.”

  “He deserves a win after what happened to his family last year, no?” Lucinda looked over at Cam with a sad expression.

  “For sure,” Cam said. “He seems to be doing really well. Ellie said he’s been accepted to UMass Amherst. He has a running scholarship and he wants to study agricultural science.”

  “So before the next race starts, give me the lowdown on what happened Thursday,” Lucinda said in low voice. “Felicity told me you found the body.”

  “You mean in the greenhouse?” Cam asked, even though she knew that was exactly what her friend meant. When Lucinda nodded, Cam outlined the events once again. She described finding Nicole, Deb’s involvement, and being questioned by Ivan Hobbs. “Right, Felicity?” Ivan had said not to talk about it, but Felicity had already told Luc
inda, so it couldn’t hurt.

  “Right. The detective was really interested in the part about your mom going in and talking with Nicole.”

  “And I saw this guy in the parking lot hurry by me before I went in. He might have come out of the greenhouse.” Cam frowned.

  Lucinda rubbed her hands together. “He was the murderer?”

  “I have no idea,” Cam said. “Felicity, did you see him? Slight, dark hair?”

  “No, I don’t think I did.”

  Cam flashed on last night’s dinner. “You both might be interested in this. Jake’s back.”

  “Jake?” Felicity’s eyebrows flew up nearly to her hairline. “You okay with that?”

  Cam laughed. “I am. The spark is gone and that’s fine with me. But get this, the man I saw near the greenhouse was in the restaurant. Jake told me his name is Carlos Griffith.”

  “Get out. No,” Lucinda said, her dark eyebrows now knitting together. “I know him. He’s half Brazilian.”

  Cam opened her mouth to speak when from the bullhorn she heard, “Girls’ mile. On your marks.”

  The group of girls behind the starting line jockeyed for position, then settled into their stances. The girls’ race seemed to feature only one or two from each school.

  Lucinda pointed. She called out to her niece. An athletic, dark-haired girl in orange singlet and shorts tossed her head in our direction with a big smile. She sank into her stance, right next to Ellie.

  “Go, Ellie!” Cam shouted, giving Lucinda a friendly elbow.

  “Maybe they’ll tie,” Felicity offered.

  The girls set off around the track. Classmates and parents filled the air cheering for them.

  “Lucinda, I need to talk with you more about this Carlos guy,” Cam said as the girls rounded the first bend. “Do you want to go for a beer after we’re done here? Felicity, can you join us?”

  “You got it,” Lucinda said.

  “I’d love to join you,” Felicity chimed in.

  They watched as the girls ran their laps. Neither Ellie nor Lucinda’s niece ended up winning, although Ellie squeezed into third place. The two girls shook hands afterward. Ellie slung an arm around the other girl’s shoulder, and they walked back toward their respective teams.

  “São amigas,” Lucinda said. “Looks like they might be friends.”

  “Nice,” Felicity said.

  “How about that beer?” Lucinda stood and packed up her chair.

  Cam fist-bumped her. “Thought you’d never ask.”

  Chapter 12

  The three women settled into a booth at the Grog in Newburyport at four o’clock. Westbury’s only stab at a pub was the House of Pizza, and its alcohol offerings were pretty slim. After they’d each ordered glasses of draft beer, Cam stretched her legs out and yawned.

  “Hey, the day is still early, fazendeira. What, you need a nap or something?”

  “I’m just tired. You know farmers get up early. Plus, having my parents around is kind of exhausting.” Cam pulled a wry smile. “I told them I was too busy to go off exploring New Hampshire and Maine with them today. And yet here I am at a pub well before dinnertime.”

  “They can’t see you from Maine, right?” Felicity asked.

  “Exactly.” Cam laughed. “So the kids did pretty well today, didn’t they?”

  “Sure. My niece had already won her long jump event,” Lucinda said. “I don’t think she cares so much about the mile. Good that Ellie placed and Vince won. He did awesome.”

  “Ellie has three more years to work on her form and her speed,” Cam said. “She’s going to miss Vince when he goes away to school in the fall. But she’s too young to get tied down to someone.”

  The waiter set their beers down on coasters. The women clinked their glasses. Cam’s cold remedies seemed to be working, so she didn’t feel that bad about going out drinking two days in a row.

  “I got hitched to my high school namorado, my sweetheart, back in Salvador.” Lucinda sipped her beer and gazed at Cam over the top of the glass.

  “Wait, El Salvador? But you’re Brazilian,” Felicity said.

  “Not El Salvador.” Lucinda laughed. “Salvador is the capital of the state of Bahia in Brazil. It’s on the ocean, and it’s gorgeous.”

  “Aha. But I didn’t know you were married before. I don’t think you ever told us. What happened?” Felicity asked.

  “I didn’t know, either,” Cam said. Lucinda definitely wasn’t married now.

  Lucinda traced a line through the condensation on the outside of her glass. She raised her eyes. “He ended up being wicked mean. He beat me so bad I lost a baby.” She raised her shoulders and let them down with her breath. “Already ten years ago now. I had to escape to here.”

  “He abused you.” Cam stared at her, covering her friend’s hand with her own. “How awful.”

  “I was almost four months pregnant. I had him arrested, but his family, they were everywhere. I was so afraid. So I came here. Now I don’t know if I’ll ever have children.”

  Cam didn’t know what to say. “I’m so sorry, my friend. But you must have guys interested in you.” She’d be surprised if there weren’t. Lucinda was smart, energetic, and attractive. She was at least five years older than Cam’s own thirty-three, but that was still young enough to start a family.

  “Do you have anybody special lately?” Felicity asked.

  Lucinda squeezed one eye shut and half grinned. “Maybe. Mas é cedo ainda.” She laughed. “It’s too early to tell you girls about him.”

  Funny. That was the same thing Sim had said. Maybe love was in the air this spring.

  “Really?” Felicity asked. “That’s good news, anyway.”

  “Definitely.” Cam smiled at Lucinda. “Now, what can you tell me about this Carlos Griffith?”

  Lucinda sipped her beer. “I met him through somebody. Lemme think who. I know his mother is Brazilian but he grew up here. Like maybe in Portsmouth.”

  The New Hampshire seacoast town was thirty miles north. “What would he be doing in Westbury?”

  “I think he lives in Newburyport. And he’s kind of big into being a Catholic. I mean, he has a regular job. He doesn’t work for the church or anything. But he’s a lector and a lay minister. So he could have been at Saint Ann’s. I saw him at Mass there a couple of times.”

  “Do you know what his job is?” Felicity asked.

  “Something with money. Taxes, maybe. Or insurance.”

  That must have been why Carlos had been in the parking lot that the greenhouse shared with the insurance agency. Unless his visit was connected with Nicole’s rosary beads.

  * * *

  After they finished their beers, Lucinda blushed. “I gotta go. I have to get ready for a date.”

  Felicity gave her a thumbs-up. “Can you drop me at my car at the high school?”

  “Of course,” Lucinda said.

  The three women exchanged hugs on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. Felicity and Lucinda headed for the municipal parking lot. Cam walked slowly in the opposite direction to her truck, musing about Carlos Griffith. It felt like he was a key to this mystery. She was thinking so hard the toe of her sneaker caught on brick sticking up out of the old sidewalk and she nearly crashed to the ground, rescuing herself only by grabbing a nearby lamppost.

  She arrived where she’d parked and climbed into the cab of her truck. Instead of turning on the engine, she pulled her phone out. Jake had said Carlos lived in Newburyport. Maybe she could at least drive by. She didn’t have a reason in the world to visit him, but she felt an urge to know more about the man. She ran a search.

  Bingo. His wasn’t a particularly common name. His name and street popped up in a news article about the city council, where Carlos had apparently offered public comment. The article said his home was on Bromfield Street, a wide thoroughfare that led from High Street down to the water of the wide Merrimack River, where it headed for the Atlantic Ocean a few miles east. She checked the search results aga
in, but the house address didn’t show up anywhere. Bromfield was only a few blocks from here. It couldn’t hurt to just drive down his street. Could it?

  She turned onto Water Street, and a quarter mile along took another right onto Bromfield. The houses were mostly antiques, looking as if they’d been constructed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Many were built right up to the sidewalk and had narrow profiles with the front door on the right, while several others were large boxes with a row of smaller windows on the third floor, probably servants’ quarters, Cam thought. Newburyport had been a thriving port in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, hosting clipper ships and whaling boats, and was where the Coast Guard was founded.

  Glancing from left to right, Cam rolled down the street at not much above twenty miles per hour, but she didn’t see any sign of Carlos. It was a silly venture, really. He could be anywhere. Indoors watching the Red Sox. In his backyard gardening or enjoying a drink with friends on a patio. Cruising on a sailboat. Dining out with his wife again.

  From the direction of High Street she spied two figures on the sidewalk coming toward her. The smaller of the two walked a good-size dog trotting on a leash. Cam narrowed her eyes as the gap decreased between them and her. If she was not mistaken, that was, in fact, Carlos Griffith. With only a few houses between them, she saw that the smaller of the pair was a dark-haired girl of eleven or twelve wearing shorts and a light jacket in Newburyport’s colors of crimson and gold. So Carlos had a daughter. The two laughed about something as the golden retriever pulled at the leash.

  Cam passed them and arrived at busy High Street, where the ship captains had built mansions complete with widow’s walks. Carlos Griffith looked every bit the picture of a happy family man. So what was his connection with Nicole Kingsbury?

  * * *

  By six o’clock Cam was home and had the chickens all tucked in for the night. Cam’s mother had texted that they wouldn’t be back until nine or ten, so Cam nuked some leftover pasta and settled in at the kitchen table with a glass of red and the local newspaper. Her eyes perked up at headline below the fold.