Authors: Cynthia Riggs
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #Cozy
The barn door was ajar. It swung with a low moan as a slight breeze passed over them.
“There it is,” Harley said, pointing. “On the other side of the barn.”
She could see only its light blue trunk from where she stood. She called out. “Linda? Hey, Linda!”
Bugs strode over to the car, and Harley followed close behind him. He stopped abruptly, but she could see around him. The driver’s side door was open, and the dome light was on, a feeble pale blotch.
“Whoa!” Bugs held an arm out to stop her, but she went around him.
Linda was slumped in the driver’s seat, her seat belt still fastened. Her head hung limply on her chest, and below her neck was a bib- shaped blotch of dark brown. Her left arm dangled almost to the ground.
“She’s not dead?” Harley whispered.
Bugs lifted Linda’s hand and felt her wrist. “Long gone. Shit,” he said. He unzipped his leather jacket and removed his cell phone and dialed 911. “Hope this damned thing works from here,” he said.
Harley sat down suddenly in the grass in front of the barn and leaned against the weathered shingles. “Now what?” She took off her helmet and shook out her spiky hair. She wiped her hand across her forehead, where it was beaded with cold sweat.
“We wait, that’s what,” said Bugs.
Victoria was looking up a word in the library’s big dictionary when she heard the police siren. She hurried into the dining room and saw the police Bronco racing down New Lane, lights flashing.
“Why didn’t she stop here?” Victoria murmured. Then, “Let’s go, Elizabeth.” By the time her granddaughter realized what was happening, Victoria had pulled on her sweater, picked up her cloth bag, and hobbled out the door on her way to the car.
They arrived at Burkhardt’s and pulled up next to Casey, who was standing by the Bronco talking on her radio.
“Why didn’t you pick me up?” Victoria asked, hurt.
“This was an emergency.”
“My house was on your way.”
“Sorry, Victoria.” But Casey didn’t sound sorry.
The door of the blue Ford was still open, and Linda’s dead hand dangled, limp and gray. The dome light was out.
Bugs sat astride his Indian in the shade of a pine tree, his sunglasses in place, cleaning his fingernails with a penknife. Harley was sitting on a stump, her hands between her knees, her eyes blank.
Elizabeth took a quick look at the slumped body in the blue car and hustled down to the edge of the pond, where she sat on a driftwood log and lowered her head.
“The state police are on the way,” Casey said to Bugs. “I need to ask you a few questions, probably the same ones the state guys will ask.”
Bugs nodded.
Victoria limped over to the barn, careful not to step on any marks the killer might have left. She peered through the open door without touching anything. In the dust on the barn floor she could make out footprints, partially swept away. A freshly broken pine branch with bunches of long needles lay next to the door.
Casey finished talking to Bugs and joined Victoria.
“Someone was here,” said Victoria. “Waiting for her, unless she took him by surprise.”
Casey knelt to examine the blurry prints. “Maybe the state lab can make something of them. Not much there.”
They turned away from the barn.
“What, exactly, killed her?” Victoria asked.
“Her throat was cut.”
Victoria put her hand on her own throat. “With what, a knife? Razor?”
“Doesn’t look like a knife or razor cut,” said Casey. “More like a wire garrote. Doc Jeffers is on his way here.”
Victoria leaned against the Bronco.
“Do you want to sit down?” Casey asked. “Your feet must still be tender.”
“I’m all right, thank you. I’d rather stand.”
Casey, too, leaned against the police vehicle. “Now I’ve called the state cops, everyone on this Island knows we have big-time trouble here. There’s no possibility of keeping anything quiet.”
“Why would you want to?” said Victoria.
Casey shrugged instead of replying.
Victoria nodded toward the blue Ford. “Linda’s seat belt is still fastened. Which means she was killed immediately after she opened her car door and before she unbuckled her seat belt. The killer must have been quick.”
“Yeah,” said Casey, studying the Ford.
“From the way the car is parked, it would be impossible for someone to steal up behind her without her seeing him. The killer was somebody she knew and trusted.”
Casey said nothing.
“Linda had some reason for coming here. I wonder what it was?
I’m sure she set the fire, but I don’t think she intended to harm anyone. She was horrified when she learned there was a person inside.”
“We’ll never know, now,” Casey said.
“From what she told me about her uncle, I gathered there were some goings-on when she was a girl.”
“He molested her?”
Victoria nodded.
“Kids bury those memories. Deep.” Casey kicked at the dry grass and a puff of dust rose. “Bunch of scum.” She shook her head. “While we’re waiting, we can check out the back roads you told me about, if your feet can take it. See if the killer might have parked along one of them.”
Three roads led from Burkhardt’s. The most commonly used one followed Tiah’s Cove, another skirted the shore of Long Cove, and a third ran down the middle of the point. Victoria knew them all. Two of the roads were overgrown now with brush and grasses.
“You okay with walking?”
“Fine.” At that, Victoria stepped on a rough spot in the grass. “Ouch!”
Casey looked at her with concern.
“Here’s Elizabeth now.” Victoria called out to her granddaughter. “You can leave now if you want, Elizabeth. Casey will see that I get home.”
“I’ll put your things in the Bronco,” said Elizabeth.
Victoria and Casey walked slowly down the middle track, Victoria leaning on her walking stick. “We’re looking for car tracks and footprints?” “Right.”
“This road doesn’t seem a likely place,” Victoria said. “A car would have crushed these sticks. And the branches along the sides would be bent or broken.”
“The killer may have parked farther along and walked the rest of the way.”
Fall was not far away. Late summer acorns had dropped into their path. Tall grass growing between the overgrown ruts had turned russet and pale gold, and huckleberry leaves were already dark burgundy. The air was pungent with oak and pine and sea salt. A hawk
circled high overhead with its mournful cry, “Scree!”
They retraced their steps to the barn, then followed the old road that skirted the cove. From here, they could see across the pond to the opening in the bar.
Three or four times a year, storm winds and tides swept sand across the opening, closing it. Then the pond level would rise, fed by streams and groundwater, covering the edges of the pond. When the level was high enough, townspeople would cut a new opening, in the old days with a team of oxen, now with a bulldozer.
Where the pond level had risen earlier this summer, it had left a rim of seaweed, driftwood, and small shells. Fat brown seedpods of wild iris rattled as they brushed by.
“Here’s a print!” Victoria sang out.
“Mark it with sticks or something.”
They found another print, and another. Partway along the track, where it passed under oak trees, they found traces of a vehicle.
“One question answered.” Casey wrote in her notebook, slipped it back in her pocket, and started back.
“Wait,” said Victoria. “Farther on, the road follows the top of a bluff that overlooks a lily pond. It would be easy to dispose of a car by pushing it off the bluff.”
“Hiram’s van?”
Victoria nodded.
The bluff rose about fifteen feet above a closed-in arm of the cove. The pond was covered with pale pink water lilies. Victoria inhaled. The scent reminded her of clean babies, of the powder she had smoothed onto her daughters’ legs and arms, chafed by scratchy wet wool bathing suits.
Casey examined the grasses and shrubbery that grew close to the edge of the bluff, then called to Victoria, who limped over.
“Look.” Casey pointed to the surface of the pond. Almost hidden by lily pads was a partially submerged vehicle, only its back window showing.
Victoria awoke to a gray day with low clouds hanging over the west pasture. After breakfast, she and Elizabeth headed into the village to get gas at the filling station.
“Drop me off at Alley’s,” Victoria said. “I’ll pick up the mail while you get gas.”
As Elizabeth pulled over to the curb, a few drops of rain splashed on the windshield. Lincoln Sibert had parked his pickup behind them, and they went up the steps together.
“Looks as if we’re in for a nor’easter,” Victoria said.
Lincoln nodded. “Red sky this morning. Going to the casino meeting this afternoon, Miz Trumbull?”
“I expect so. And you?”
“Everybody on the Island is going. They’re serving free booze. Draw a crowd every time.”
“Then I’ll see you there,” said Victoria. She walked to the back of the store, past groceries and racks of postcards, to the bank of mailboxes on the back wall.
She was sorting through letters and catalogs when someone behind her said, “Hello, Mrs. Trumbull.”
Victoria looked up and smiled. “Why, hello, Patience. We don’t often see you in West Tisbury.”
“I’m posting last-minute meeting announcements,” Patience said. “I hope the rain doesn’t keep people away.”
“I wouldn’t think so. This is an important issue.” Victoria tossed a catalog into the cardboard box below the mail slot. “I wish they wouldn’t waste so much paper.”
“Entire forests of trees,” Patience agreed. “We’ll see you this afternoon, won’t we?”
“I hope so.”
“Can I give you a ride?”
“No, thank you. Chief O’Neill is taking me.”
“We’ll see you later, then.” Patience paid for a newspaper and a box of chocolate chip cookies and left through the back door. She held the newspaper over her head, opened the door of her red pickup, lifted her voluminous skirt, and climbed in. She slammed the door and drove off.
Victoria watched the truck until it was out of sight around the side of the store, and tried to recall what the red truck reminded her of.
After lunch, Victoria put on her raincoat and her tan hat, pulled her rubber boots on over her wool socks, and walked slowly down the road to the police station. She sat in her usual chair, misted with rain and out of breath.
Casey looked up from her computer. “I was going to pick you up, Victoria. You need to favor your feet.”
“I like walking in the rain. Besides, I don’t want my feet to atrophy.” Victoria opened her raincoat and fanned herself with it. “What time is the meeting?”
Casey looked at her watch. “We have plenty of time. It’s not until two o’clock.”
“Who’s giving the presentation?”
“The tribe is sponsoring it, but the presentation itself is by Casinos Unlimited. They’ve invited the three up-Island police chiefs. We’d be the ones involved if some old lady has a heart attack over hitting the jackpot.”
“I wouldn’t mind trying my hand at the slot machines.”
Casey looked up quickly from her work with a grin.
“Elizabeth doesn’t seem to think most members of the tribe support a casino,” said Victoria.
“Doesn’t much matter what they think. Patience gets what Patience wants. I got to give her credit. She’s done a lot of good stuff for the tribe.” Casey turned back to her computer. “I’ll close this file, and then we can go.”
Victoria glanced around the office while she waited. The page of this month’s calendar featured a basket of kittens tangled in colored yarn. She examined Casey’s cluttered desk and the obsessively neat desk Junior Norton shared with the two patrolmen.
She looked out at the millpond. Rain pockmarked the surface. The swans and their three half-grown cygnets sailed with no apparent effort on the dimpled surface. Snapping turtles had dragged four of the swans’ seven cygnets under, and killed and eaten them, one at a time. The animal control officer told Victoria she had seen one cygnet disappear underwater, and had waded into the pond in her good leather boots and jeans to try to save the baby. But the turtle had gotten away, leaving a trail of bubbles that led to the middle of the pond.
Victoria was musing on the violence within the quiet pond, and suddenly had a thought. “I know how we can trap the killer,” she said out loud.
Casey looked up and waited for Victoria to say more. She turned off her computer and stood up. “Well?” She looked at Victoria again, reached for her heavy belt that was slung on the back of her chair, and fastened it around her waist.
Victoria hadn’t followed up on her trap comment.
Casey took her yellow rain jacket from the closet, and they both went out the door. Victoria turned in time to see the chief make a face at the door as she pulled it shut.
“Are you going to tell me who you think the killer is, or do I have to guess?”
“I don’t know who the killer is,” Victoria said.
They climbed into the police vehicle, and Casey backed out of the parking area.
“What’s this trap you’re planning to set, then?”
“It’s going to sound foolish to you, unless I can explain my thinking.”
Casey glanced at Victoria, whose face was half-turned toward the open window. She was smiling.
“Victoria,” said Casey, “I wish I were as young as you look at this moment. Smartest thing I ever did was to appoint you my deputy.”
Victoria turned, still smiling.
“But,” said Casey, and Victoria’s smile faded, “we’re supposed to be a team. You’ve got to stop doing stuff on your own. What is this trap you’re planning to set?”
Victoria cleared her throat.
Casey kept her eyes on the road ahead of them. “I’m sorry I didn’t pick you up last night when Bugs found Linda’s body. I wasn’t being a team player, was I?”
Victoria pulled down the sun visor and looked at her reflection in the small mirror. She was wearing her baseball cap with gold stitching. She pushed the visor back against the overhead, took a small notebook out of her cloth bag, and started to make a list.