Moonlight Becomes You

52

Detective Jim Haggerty had known and liked Greta Shipley nearly all his life. From the time he was a little boy delivering newspapers to her door, he could never remember a single time when she hadn’t been gracious and friendly to him. She also paid promptly and tipped generously when he collected on Saturday mornings.

She wasn’t like some of the tightwads in the other swanky houses, he thought, who ran up bills, then paid for six weeks of papers and added on a ten-cent tip. He particularly remembered one snowy day when Mrs. Shipley had insisted he come in and get warm and had dried his gloves and knit cap on the radiator while he drank the cocoa she made for him.

Earlier that morning, when he had attended the service at Trinity Church, he was sure that many in the congregation shared the thought that he couldn’t get out of his mind: Greta Shipley’s death had been hastened by the shocking murder of her close friend Nuala Moore.

If someone has a heart attack when a crime is taking place, the perpetrator can sometimes be tried for murder, Haggerty thought-but how about when a friend dies in her sleep a few days later?

At the service for Mrs. Shipley, he was surprised to see Nuala Moore’s stepdaughter, Maggie Holloway, sitting with Liam Payne. Liam always had an eye for pretty women, Haggerty mused, and Lord knows enough of them had had an eye for him over the years. He was one of Newport ’s “most eligible” bachelors.

He had also spotted Earl Bateman in church. Now there is a guy who may be educated enough to be a professor, but who still isn’t playing with a full deck of cards, Haggerty had thought. That museum of his is like something out of the Addams Family -it gave Haggerty the shivers. Earl should have stayed in the family business, he thought. Every shirt on his back had been paid for by someone’s next of kin.

Haggerty had slipped away before the recessional, but not before he deduced that Maggie Holloway must have gotten very close to Mrs. Shipley to have taken the time to come to her funeral service. The thought occurred to him that maybe if she had visited Mrs. Shipley at Latham Manor, she might have learned something from her that could be helpful in understanding why Nuala Moore had canceled the sale of her house to Malcolm Norton.

Norton was the guy Jim Haggerty believed knew something he wasn’t telling. And it was that thinking that brought him unannounced to 1 Garrison Avenue at three o’clock that afternoon.

When the bell rang, Maggie was in Nuala’s bedroom, where she was separating carefully folded clothing into piles: good, usable clothing for Goodwill; older, well-worn outfits for the ragbag; fairly expensive, dressy outfits for the hospital thrift shop.

She was keeping for herself the blue outfit Nuala had worn that night at the Four Seasons, as well as one of her painting smocks. Memory Lane, she thought.

In the crammed closets she had come across several cardigans and tweed jackets-Tim Moore’s clothing, she was sure, sentimentally kept by Nuala.

Nuala and I were always on the same wavelength, she mused, thinking of the box in her walk-in closet in the apartment. It held the dress she had worn the night she met Paul, as well as one of his flight suits and their matching jogging outfits.

As she sorted, Maggie’s mind worked ceaselessly on an explanation for the presence of the bells at the graves. It had to be Earl who had placed them there, she reasoned. Was it his idea of a sly joke on women from the residence, because of the uproar that had followed his handing out the bells during his lecture at Latham Manor?

It was an explanation that made sense. He probably knew all of these women. After all, most of the residents of Latham Manor were originally from Newport, or at least had spent the spring and summer months there.

Maggie held up a robe, decided it had seen its day, and put it in the ragbag. But Nuala didn’t live in Latham, she reminded herself. Did he put a bell on her grave as a tribute of friendship? He seemed to have honestly liked her.

One of the graves did not have a bell, though. Why? she wondered. I have the names of all those women, Maggie thought. Tomorrow I’m going to go back to the cemetery and copy the date they died from their tombstones. There must have been an obituary in the newspaper for each of them. I want to see what those say.

The sound of the doorbell was an unwelcome interruption. Who would just drop in? she wondered as she headed downstairs. Then she found herself praying it was not another unexpected visit from Earl Bateman; she didn’t know if she could handle that this afternoon.

It took a moment to realize that the man at the door was one of the Newport police officers who had responded originally to her 911 call the night of Nuala’s murder. He introduced himself as Detective Jim Haggerty. Once inside the house, he settled in the club chair with the air of a man who had nothing to do except exchange pleasantries for the day.

Maggie sat facing him, balanced on the edge of the couch. If he had any appreciation of body language, he would see that she hoped to keep this interview as brief as possible.

He began by answering a question she had not asked. “I’m afraid we’re still in the dark as far as having a real suspect in mind. But this crime isn’t going to go unpunished. I can promise you that,” he said.

Maggie waited.

Haggerty tugged on his glasses till they rested on the end of his nose. He crossed his legs and massaged his ankle. “Old skiing injury,” he explained. “Now it lets me know if the wind is shifting. It’ll be raining by tomorrow night.”

You didn’t come to talk about the weather, Maggie thought.

“Ms. Holloway, you’ve been here a little over a week, and I’m glad most of our visitors don’t experience the kind of shock that greeted you. And then today, I saw you in church, at the funeral for Mrs. Shipley. I guess you got friendly with her since coming here.”

“Yes, I did. Actually it was a request Nuala made in her will, but it was something I did with pleasure.”

“Wonderful woman, Mrs. Shipley. Knew her all my life. A shame she didn’t have a family. She liked kids. Do you think she was happy at Latham Manor?”

“Yes, I do. I had dinner there with her the night she died, and she clearly enjoyed her friends.”

“Did she tell you why her best friend, your stepmother, changed her mind at the last minute about moving there?”

“I don’t think anyone knows that,” Maggie said. “Dr. Lane was confident that Nuala would change it yet again and decide to take the apartment. No one can be sure of her state of mind.”

“I guess I was hoping that Mrs. Moore might have explained to Mrs. Shipley her reason for canceling her reservation. From what I understand, Mrs. Shipley was real pleased that her old friend was going to be under the same roof.”

Maggie thought of the caricature Nuala had sketched on the poster, showing Nurse Markey eavesdropping. Was that still in Greta Shipley’s apartment? she wondered.

“I don’t know if this had any bearing,” she said carefully, “but I believe that both Nuala and Mrs. Shipley were very careful of what they said when one of the nurses was around. She had a way of barging in without notice.”

Haggerty stopped kneading his ankle. “Which nurse?” he asked, his tone a shade quicker.

“Nurse Markey.”

Haggerty got up to go. “Any decisions made about the house, Ms. Holloway?”

“Well, of course the will still has to be probated, but I’m absolutely not putting it on the market at this time. In fact I may very well never put it up for sale. Newport is lovely, and it would make a nice retreat from Manhattan.”

“Does Malcolm Norton know that?”

“As of this morning, he does. In fact, I told him not only do I not want to sell, but I have received a substantially better offer for the property.”

Haggerty’s eyebrows raised. “Now, this is a lovely old house, so I hope you understand I’m not being denigrating when I say that this place must have buried treasure hidden in it. I hope you find it.”

“If there’s anything to be found here, I intend to unearth it,” Maggie said. “I’m not going to have any peace