Shadows at the Fair (21 page)

There were tears in Lydia’s eyes, but the eyes were hard and angry. “They’d lit a cross on our yard. Flames were shooting from the cross, like a wall of fire. I couldn’t see the faces, but I saw people running. The flames followed them, across the grass, because in the heat and the drought the grass caught fire. We called the fire department, and they came. Fast enough so no one was hurt, but the front of our house was black with the smoke from the fire, and there were no bushes or flowers left in our yard.”

“Like a sign from God; the bushes burned.”

“That was the night Danny died.”

What a nightmare. Maggie wanted to reach out and hug Lydia, but one look at Lydia’s eyes said that was not an option.

“We left. We knew it was a word from God. We had to end the suffering; end the plague. God had spoken through the burning bush.” Abe said it in a monotone.

“We sold our house, and we started in the antiques business,” Lydia continued. “At first I thought we could escape the pain if we just kept moving, but the pain followed us. There are so many suffering men. Wherever we went, we found them. Some we were able to help, and some we weren’t. But we tried. God had put his hand on them and condemned them. Burning in hell is enough of a punishment. We did what we could to end their suffering.”

“You killed Susan to end her suffering?”

“She would have been in great pain, Maggie. Alone, and in great pain. It was for the best.”

“And—Harry?”

“That was Abe’s stupidity.” Lydia shot a glance at her husband. “We saw Susan’s AZT on Friday, and we knew she had the sickness, and so Abe assumed Harry had it, too. We felt especially moved by Susan, since she was the first woman God had asked us to help. It only seemed right for them to go together; they had been so close, and they were both to die anyway.”

“But you didn’t poison Harry.”

“Poison is the easiest and cleanest way, but sometimes you have to use other ways.” Lydia spoke simply, as though she were explaining alternative methods of making pie crust. “Abe found one of those bronze lion statues when he went over to her van Friday night. It was just sitting there on the ground. He was going to see if he could get any of her pills, so we could fix them to help her. She wasn’t there, and the door was locked, but Abe picked up the lion, thinking Susan had left it there by accident and would want it returned, and then God led him to Harry.” Lydia made it sound matter-of-fact.

Abe nodded. “He told me what to do. He told me to smite the enemy with the weapon He had given me. So I did, and it was as the Lord said, and then I returned the lion of God to its resting place and went to pray.”

Which explained why Abe wasn’t among the dealers who gathered when Harry’s body was found. He was praying.

And Abe and Lydia had been at the Westchester Show.

“Did you—help—John Smithson, too?”

“Indeed we did. He was so easy. Not like some of the young men. His booth was near ours, and the Lord asked him to leave his medication right there, in his booth, when he took a break. He is at peace; the end came quickly.”

Some of the young men.
Maggie wondered how many.

“Didn’t anyone ever suspect what you were doing?”

“The Lord knew. We did His bidding.” Abe smiled calmly.

Lydia held the gun steadily as she chattered on. “We were on the road most of the time. There was nothing to connect us with any of the men. We didn’t help everyone in the same way, either. That would have been too easy. God creates each man separately; he would want each man to have his own special way of leaving.”

“But I don’t have AIDS. There is no reason for you to ‘help’ me.”

“Maggie, not everyone would understand our mission. You asked too many questions; you know too much about us. You are not a part of the plan, but I need to stop you from telling anyone. You said you would go to the police.”

“You are interfering with the plan; Lydia is right.”

“Abe, we’re talking too much. You still have to get the rest of the cartons in the booth.”

“Two, I think.” Abe picked up the carton he’d balanced near him and reached over to pile it above where Maggie was sitting. The van door slid closed again.

Let him block the gun, just for one moment. That would give me a chance. Maggie concentrated on Lydia’s hand. If she could knock the gun, maybe she could catch Lydia off balance.

She heard the sounds of dealers outside the van. Car and truck doors opening and closing; the sound of dollies loaded with furniture. Voices. How close were they? How long had she been in the van? It felt like hours, but she knew it was probably only a few minutes.

Suddenly a siren blared, the van door opened, and screams filled the air.

This was Maggie’s chance. She struck toward where Lydia’s gun had been. As she heard the gun go off, she stumbled against Abe, whose carton had fallen and knocked against both of them, pushing her toward the front of the van.

The gun was on the bed; Maggie reached for it just as figures filled the van doorway.

Officer Taggart’s gun was drawn as he reached out and pulled Lydia’s arm behind her back. She struggled, trying to reach for the gun with her other arm, but her tiny size was no match for the officer’s.

Abe had slumped on the bed; blood was beginning to soak through the small hole in the side of his shirt.

Taggart called to another officer outside the van, “Call an ambulance. And bring in an extra set of cuffs.” He turned Lydia around, cuffed her, and pushed her toward the door, focusing his attention on Abe and Maggie.

Maggie grinned. “Did you hear everything?”

She reached inside her bra and removed a small microphone, which she handed to him.

“Down to the last syllable. But sure looks like you’ll have one hell of a headache in the morning.”

“I’ll be okay.” Maggie followed Taggart and Lydia out of the van.

As one of the other policemen went back in for Abe, Gussie and Ben grinned at her, and Ben gave her a thumbs-up.

“We did it, Gussie.”

Will appeared next to her, obviously relieved. He reached over and hugged her. “Maggie, if you’d needed some help packing up, why didn’t you ask me?”

Maggie grinned. “Could I ask now? I still haven’t finished packing, and I wouldn’t want to get blood on any of my prints.”

It was late Sunday night, and Gussie’s motel room was full. Maggie’s head was bandaged, but, thanks to Will and Ben, her van was packed.

The doctors at the hospital had told her to take it easy for the night, so she would spend one more night in the motel and make the four-hour drive to New Jersey in the morning.

Ben and his parents were there, too, beaming with relief and delight; the weekend’s nightmares were over.

Will reached over and put his hand on Maggie’s. “My friend in Connecticut can wait a day to see me. But I still can’t figure how you and Gussie did this, and why you didn’t ask for any help.”

“I wasn’t absolutely sure, and I didn’t want you to think I was crazy. I thought of the azalea tea when I was looking through my prints this afternoon and found some notes on the uses—or misuses—of azaleas. Of course, the fairgrounds are surrounded by azaleas in bloom, and I’d seen the flowers in the Wyndhams’ booth, and in their van Friday night. And thinking about all Lydia’s teas, the explanation just made sense. But Gussie’s the one who confirmed it all.”

Gussie nodded. “I came back here to my room this afternoon and checked the Internet. Sure enough, it listed several studies published by the University of Iowa about the dangers of azaleas.”

Maggie broke in, “Lydia was a botany teacher in Iowa, and she taught students who came from farms. She would have known about azaleas. I didn’t know why she’d poisoned Susan, but she certainly had the opportunity. And then I remembered she and Abe had been at the Westchester Show last week when John Smithson died. There might have been a connection, since poison was involved both times.”

“What about Harry?”

“I wasn’t sure about that. But when I looked at the bronze temple lions in Susan’s booth, I realized that the front feet of one of them had been cleaned—almost polished. The back feet, and the feet on the other lion, were untouched. It looked as though someone had been trying to eliminate stains or marks of some sort.”

“Like blood or dirt?” Ben had been listening.

“Exactly. And since Vince told me he’d left one of the lions outside Susan’s van on Friday night, and then picked it up later, I figured it could have been moved in the meantime. It could have been Vince…but he was with people almost all evening. I got Taggart to put the microphone on me. He thought I was a little off-the-wall, but he agreed to try it. Gussie was waiting outside the Wyndhams’ van, and she set off her alarm when Taggart signaled he was ready to break in.”

“That was some noise!”

“Jim got the alarm for me last year,” said Gussie. “It’s attached to the side of my scooter and it’s inconspicuous. The idea is to signal for help if you really need it.”

“Well, I really did! That was the most welcome sound of the day.”

Will shook his head. “This has been an incredible weekend. What’s going to happen to Lydia and Abe now?”

“Abe’s in the hospital; that shot from Lydia’s gun got him in the side, but they think he’ll be all right. They’re both being charged with the three murders they confessed to—Susan’s, Harry’s, and John Smithson’s—and the police here are going to contact police near all the locations the Wyndhams have done shows in the past year or two, looking for suspicious deaths or unsolved murders, particularly of men who might have had AIDS but who died suddenly of other causes. Remember, she said Susan was the first woman they’d ‘helped.’”

“I never guessed when Abe showed me all of those mourning artifacts. It must have been a way of mourning for his own son,” said Will. “And maybe mourning the other people he had helped to end their lives.”

Gussie grimaced. “Watching their own son die must have been awful. But what would set them on such a strange crusade?”

Will shrugged. “Who knows what makes anyone do something as perverted as murder? They felt they were on a mission. But at least their mission is over now.”

“Speaking of missions, Maggie, what is your antiques schedule for this summer?” Gussie leaned back in her chair.

Maggie smiled. “I’ll see you next month, for the Provincetown show, and then I’ll head Down East to visit one of my college roommates and her husband. They’ve just bought an old house, complete with a ghost. I’ll do some buying while I’m there, and I’ve signed up for a couple of shows.”

“Maine? Your roommate wouldn’t happen to live near Waymouth, would she?” Will had come to attention.

“Right across the river, in Madoc.”

“My great-aunt Nettie lives there! I try to visit her several times a year. She saves her household repairs for me to do, and Maine is a great place to pick up old brass and iron items. Maybe I can help you and your friend vanquish her ghost.”

“Thanks, but I think after today I can cope with anything that doesn’t carry a gun.”

“Or wave an azalea branch?”

“That, too. I’ll never feel quite the same about springtime blossoms.”

Gussie laughed. “Don’t worry. This weekend was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The antiques business is a quiet, safe profession.”

Maggie wasn’t so sure.