A Star-Spangled Murder Read online

  Susan squinted down at Halsey Downing, who had apparently chosen her porch as a likely place for a brief nap.

  “I fell.… I guess I tripped over this pile of stuff,” Halsey said.

  “What time is it?” Susan asked, not bothering to explain about the construction of the float.

  Halsey rubbed her head. “A little after three. I wouldn’t have bothered you in the middle of the night and all, but I thought this might be important, even urgent.” She handed Susan a folded sheet of lined paper. “I just read the first few sentences … and the end to see who it was from,” she explained. “I heard at the restaurant tonight that the little girl is missing. The whole island is talking about it. A lot of people have joined the search party, but others figure that she can take care of herself, and one or two people think maybe she’s the murderer—accidentally, though. I mean, that she killed her stepfather accidentally. I can shut up until you finish reading,” she ended, apparently recognizing the look of annoyance on Susan’s face.

  Susan scanned the note down to its signature, then started at the beginning and read it through again before speaking. “Who gave this to you?” she asked.

  “No one. I found it in my pocket.”

  “Your pocket?”

  “The pocket of the jacket I wore today. The one I wore to work. I didn’t wear it during the day, but I stuck my hand in as I was walking out the door tonight, and there it was. I started to read it before I realized it wasn’t for me. That girl must have thought my jacket was yours.”

  “When did you leave The Blue Mussel tonight?” Susan asked, thinking that Titania had probably made no such mistake.

  “About twenty minutes ago. We’re short a cook for the weekend, so I stayed late and did a lot of baking. Pies, cakes, puddings. You know.”

  It was a measure of Susan’s interest in the note that she didn’t think to stop and request The Blue Mussel’s recipe for raspberry cream pie. “And you wore your jacket there today?” she continued her questions.

  “Yes. I got to the restaurant around eleven this morning,” Halsey added without being asked.

  “And you hung it up right away?”

  “Yes. It was chilly for a while, but it’s new—that jacket—and I didn’t want to get it dirty. Everything gets filthy in the kitchen.”

  “And you don’t think the note was in it when you arrived?” Susan thought that was unlikely, but she had to ask.

  “I’m sure it wasn’t. Like I said, it’s new. I just cut the tags off this morning, and I looked in the pockets then. For those little cardboards with extra buttons. You know.”

  Susan nodded. “And where did you hang it? On the coatrack by the front door?”

  “No, that’s just for customers. We have our own hooks in the mudroom outside the kitchen entrance.”

  “I’ve never been back there. It’s around the side of the building, right?”

  “Yes. There’s a sort of dirt road where trucks can park and unload stuff right into the kitchen. The mudroom isn’t very big—maybe five feet square or so—and there are hooks on the wall right next to the inside door so we can hang up our clothing and dump our boots. It’s very convenient.”

  “Is the door kept locked?” Susan asked, knowing how unlikely that was.

  “No. And anyone could just walk around the side of the building, open the door, and stuff something in a pocket. That’s what you think happened, don’t you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But why? Why not come to you? Or at least, if she doesn’t want to see anyone, why didn’t she stash the note somewhere here? Say, do you think she’s hiding somewhere near the restaurant, so it was easier for her to leave the note there?”

  “She could be, but I think she didn’t want to come this near home. She knows that we know you—remember, she came into the restaurant last night while we were talking—and she probably figured that you were a nice person who would deliver the note. But,” Susan added, “you might also be right. She may be hiding near there. Can you think of a likely spot?”

  “Do you think she’d be hiding so near downtown? After all, there are lots of people around. Although I suppose she could be staying in someone’s house—a summer person who hasn’t arrived yet. But most of those houses are on the water—and it would be safer to stay farther away from people. Unless someone is hiding her.”

  “Did she have any friends on the island?”

  “None that I know of, but I wouldn’t have necessarily heard. You’re not going to tell me what the note says, are you?”

  Susan thought for a moment. Halsey had certainly read part of the note, possibly more than she admitted. There was no real reason not to trust her to be discreet with the entire thing. Susan passed it over without a word.

  “I read the first part already. Where she asks about her Karma.”

  “That’s the name of her dog,” Susan explained, hoping the animal didn’t hear the word and wake up. Kathleen, wearing a pair of flannel pj’s printed with flags, had joined them. Susan smiled at her. “Titania has sent us a message,” she explained. “Why don’t you read it out loud?” she suggested to Halsey.

  “Okay. ‘Dear Mrs. Henshaw, How is Karma? Her food is under the microwave in my mother’s kitchen. Her chew bones are there, too. She gets one each day.’ She really cares about that dog, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes. It shows distinctly poor taste. Keep reading,” Susan ordered.

  “Okay. ‘I don’t think my mother’s friends are what they are supposed to be. There is something strange about the house—I know that. Maybe the mantel in the living room? Please take care of my sisters, and don’t forget the mantel. Titania. P.S. Thank you.’ ”

  “It’s hard to resist a child with such nice manners,” Kathleen said quietly.

  “Impossible,” Susan agreed.

  “So how are we going to get into the house to look at the mantel?” Halsey, with the impatience of youth, wasn’t going to be distracted from the central issue. “Now, wait!” She jumped up. “Maybe I could start a brushfire, and everyone would run out of the house to help fight it. Or, better yet, I could just pretend there’s a fire and yell, and everyone would leave the house, and one of us could sneak in and look at the fireplace—if only we knew what we’re supposed to be looking for—”

  “I think,” Susan interrupted, “that we should all go to bed and worry about this in the morning. I can’t tell you how glad I am that you brought this right here,” she added, seeing the disappointment on Halsey’s face. “I was beginning to have visions of that poor child’s body floating in the bay. At least now we know she was okay sometime today. But it’s late and we’re all tired. I think we should let Janet Shapiro know about this and then go to bed. There’ll be plenty of time to get into the Taylor house and look at the mantel tomorrow.”

  “You’re probably right,” Halsey agreed, ostentatiously yawning.

  “She’s absolutely right,” Kathleen said. “Murder investigations are long and exhausting. We’re all going to need our sleep.”

  “Maybe I could come back in the morning—I was going to help you set up the house,” Halsey added. “Remember?”

  “That’s fine,” Susan said. “About seven-thirty?”

  “Isn’t that a little early?” Kathleen asked.

  “People on the island get up early,” Halsey commented, standing up and heading for the door.

  “They certainly do,” Kathleen agreed. Between dead men and exhaustion, she was going to need another vacation to recover from this one.

  “I don’t suppose you could stop and get some doughnuts on the way here tomorrow?” Susan asked, following Halsey to the door. “Theresa and Tierney are going to wake up hungry, and all we have is granola and eggs.”

  “No problem,” Halsey assured her, hurrying out to the beat-up Volkswagen bug that was sitting in the drive. “I’ll bring a lot.”

  Susan waved and returned to the house as the tiny engine sputtered to life.

  “Where a
re you going?” Kathleen asked, starting up the stairs.

  “The kitchen,” Susan answered cryptically. “I’m going to make some coffee.”

  “Coffee? Are you nuts? Aren’t you going to bed?”

  “Not until I stop Halsey from doing something stupid. You don’t believe that she’s headed back home to sleep, do you?”

  * * *

  “I don’t believe that we’re doing this!”

  “What could we do? There’s a murderer around. We couldn’t just leave Halsey alone out here.”

  “We could have locked her in the basement—that way she’d be safe until morning, and we wouldn’t be risking death from millions of bug bites.”

  “I don’t think you can die from bug bites,” Susan insisted.

  “I would have agreed with you before spending the night outside on a Maine island,” Kathleen said, slapping her neck.

  “You could go back to the house. There’s really no reason for the two of us to be out here. You’d hear me yell if there were an emergency.”

  “And miss all the fun?”

  Susan grinned. They were creeping through the edge of the forest between the two houses, watching for Halsey.

  “Maybe she’s not going—”

  “Shhh! I think I hear her …” Susan began, praying that the dog hadn’t managed to escape from the house and follow them. She thought she’d closed the bedroom door carefully. But in this fog, it was impossible to recognize anything—without getting close enough to be seen. Susan was here to stop Halsey from breaking into the Taylor house, but she was hoping Titania might come around. She couldn’t believe that the child would completely abandon her sisters—to say nothing of that damn dog.

  “Get down,” Kathleen ordered, shoving Susan to the ground.

  Susan held her breath as heavy hiking boots passed not fifteen feet from the women. “Can we get up now?” She whispered the question as the footsteps disappeared into the fog.

  “Shhh!”

  The women lay on the ground for ten minutes more as someone following the first person walked by, circled back, and then disappeared.

  “I—”

  “Doesn’t anyone sleep around here?” Halsey asked loudly, interrupting the silence.

  TEN

  “I thought I was going to have a heart attack.”

  “I wondered why you had stopped complaining about your bug bites,” Susan said, refilling her friend’s coffee cup.

  “Don’t remind me. I’m trying not to scratch,” Kathleen said, clasping her hands around the beverage.

  “There’s some stuff that’s supposed to stop itching in a tube in the medicine cabinet—Jed bought it last year. I don’t know whether it works or not, but—”

  “I already tried it. In fact, I think maybe I’m allergic to the stuff. If anything, I feel worse. Maybe Tylenol would help,” Kathleen said.

  “I sure wish I knew who was wandering around the woods last night—besides us,” Susan said a little impatiently. She liked Kathleen, but she had listened to her hunger pains and car sickness all the way to Maine; she hoped she wasn’t going to have to hear about her skin for the rest of the trip.

  “Did Halsey have any idea who it was?”

  “None. She says she didn’t even know there was anyone outside, besides herself, until she almost tripped over us.”

  “Then she probably scared away whoever else was there.” Kathleen picked up the last piece of French toast, swirled it around in the syrup on her plate, and popped it in her mouth.

  “I wonder when the girls are going to get up,” Susan said.

  “Theresa and Tierney? They’ve been up for hours. I’m glad you convinced Halsey to spend the night. I heard her feeding them sometime before six this morning. They’re out on the porch with that cage they’re building. They tried to put Karma in it and discovered that they needed to do some readjustments—or find a smaller dog.”

  “A smaller dog is a good idea. That animal’s awfully big,” Susan commented, sitting down to her tiny bowl of cereal and wondering, not for the first time, where Kathleen hid all the calories that she consumed daily. Certainly not anyplace that showed.

  “Apparently Ted Taylor had a golden retriever when he was a boy, and he loved it so much that he just automatically assumed it was the perfect breed for his children. At least, that’s what Theresa said.

  “Do you have any plans for today?” Kathleen continued. “Tierney said that you had promised to take the girls to a dance tonight. They were anxious to ask their mother, but I told them to wait. I thought she might be mistaken.…”

  “It’s a tradition,” Susan interrupted.

  “A Fourth of July sock hop? Or maybe a formal ball?” Kathleen joked.

  “Square dancing. On top of Cadillac Mountain. In Acadia National Park. It starts at midnight.”

  Kathleen opened her mouth and closed it again without saying anything. It was absurd enough to be true.

  “But that’s not until tonight,” Susan continued. “There’s a baked-bean supper down at the community church that we always go to, and we should check out the finish line of the marathon around the island and the kayaking races, but that still leaves us a lot of time, doesn’t it?”

  “To do what? Go to Humphrey’s funeral?”

  “That’s going to have to be put off until after the autopsy. We have other things to do. We have to get a look at that mantel, to set up this house, to talk with Janet Shapiro, to help the kids with their float, to do whatever else needs to be done to prepare for the holiday. I always feel like there’s so much more time in Maine than at home,” Susan concluded happily.

  “You do?” Kathleen looked puzzled.

  “I think we should go check with Halsey first,” Susan added, putting her plates in the dishwasher. “Is she still up in the attic?”

  “She was the last time I looked. I’ll go sit with the kids. They seem to know a lot more about building than I do, so I can’t really help them, but maybe they’ll talk about their sister or their stepfather—or something,” she added, scratching her ankle with a syrupy fork.

  “Good idea.” Susan started from the room. “You know,” she said, turning back, “I want to go visit an artist on the island this morning, too. Why don’t you and the girls come with me? You’ll enjoy it, and they might learn something.” She hurried off to the third floor.

  The attic was in considerably more disarray than yesterday. The women, with Halsey’s help, had removed the shutters from the first floor. The girl had spent the night in the spare bedroom and had been up before daylight pulling blankets off the living room furniture and lugging them upstairs. She was now standing in the middle of the attic, arms across her chest, staring at dozens of framed photographs leaning against the large brick chimney and scattered about on broken lawn furniture and an ancient wicker divan. She spun around when Susan appeared at the top of the stairs. “Who are all these people?” She waved her arms at the pictures.

  “Relatives, friends; a few are even strangers. It’s the history of the house. Look.” Susan knelt down and moved a few small sepia prints aside. “These are the workmen who built the boathouse.” Together, they stared at the photograph of seven solemn young men.

  “That’s the front porch,” Halsey cried with the thrill of recognition. “Look how tiny the lilac bushes are. And that dog on the lawn looks a lot like Titania’s pet, doesn’t it?”

  Susan nodded. “Hard to believe, isn’t it? I’ve always wondered if they got dressed especially for the photograph or if they came to work in jackets and hats every day.”

  “These belong on the wall going up the stairs, right?”

  “Yes. There’s even an order. They’re arranged chronologically.” She turned over a picture of three skinny boys swimming beside a wooden canoe and pointed at the tiny number that had been handwritten on its reverse side. “See? This is fourteen. It’s near the beginning of the series. These are my uncles when they were children.” She turned it over and ran her finger
over its surface. “Two of them are dead now.…”

  Halsey stood back and gave Susan a few minutes alone with her thoughts before asking another question. “Do I hang them from the top of the stairs down or from the bottom up?”

  Susan put down the photograph. “They go from the bottom up, but why don’t you not worry about it? I think I’d like to hang them this year. Just pile them on the floor of my bedroom, and I’ll get to it later.” She glanced at her Swatch. “You have to be at the restaurant in half an hour, so why not get the shutters off the windows of the boathouse and leave the rest of this. I don’t suppose you could come back tomorrow morning?”

  “I’m helping serve at the red, white, and blueberry breakfast at the Grange hall, but I could come here for an hour or so after that,” Halsey offered. “Before the parade?”

  “Then you’ll miss the dinner on the pier.…”

  “I don’t mind. And I really do need the money.”

  “Okay, it’s your decision. I’ll probably see you at the breakfast.”

  “Then I’ll get to work on the boathouse now. You don’t want those shutters brought up here, do you?”

  “No, just stack them right inside the door—there’s a space where my kayak is usually kept. They normally slip right under the kayak racks on the back wall, but since there’s no one here to use those boats, we may as well make things easy for ourselves.”

  “Great.”

  Susan smiled as Halsey bounded down the stairs. Oh, to be young and energetic after a night of less than sufficient sleep! She picked up an armload of pictures and carried them down the stairs and to her room. She heard male voices as she was placing them on the floor beside her dresser, and she headed straight down to the kitchen, wondering who was visiting so early in the day.

  She was surprised to find Paul Briane and Ryan Harter sitting at the kitchen table and being served coffee by Kathleen. “If we get confused, we figure that we can just follow everyone else—there’s no way that Paul or I are going to be in the lead,” Ryan was explaining. “We’re not that good. We just thought it would be fun to try.…”

  “Here’s Susan,” Kathleen announced, looking up at her entrance. “You’ll have to ask her.”