A Star-Spangled Murder Read online

  “Yes, of course; I just overheard something interesting.… But it was probably nothing,” Kathleen continued, less confidently. “What were you talking about?”

  “Breakfast, groceries,” Susan reminded her. “Did you pick up some orange juice?”

  “I got frozen. I thought it would be easier to carry.”

  “Good idea.” Susan selected a bag of coffee beans and continued down the aisle. “Maybe we should buy some granola or cereal in case one of us gets up earlier than the other.…” She would have looked at Kathleen with a sly smile except that Kathleen was still back with the breads. “Kath? Are you all right?”

  Kathleen held her hand up and shook her head vigorously; Susan didn’t have any idea how to interpret this. She swung around the cart and headed back to her friend.

  “I’m fine. Listen,” Kathleen ordered.

  “Listen?” Susan was puzzled when Kathleen didn’t continue.

  “Listen. To the people standing over there,” Kathleen elaborated. “I think they were talking about your new neighbors.… Damn. They’ve stopped now. Now they’re talking about cooking. Something about Eskimo rolls.”

  “Eskimo rolls are what kayakers do, they’re not bakery products,” Susan said. “So what were they saying about the people who moved into the house at the end of the cove?” she continued as they found themselves alone together.

  “I’m not sure. I …” She stopped before finishing.

  Susan looked carefully at her friend. Either she was taking this whole thing pretty seriously or she was yawning again.

  “I think,” Kathleen continued, her yawn finished, “that they were saying that someone is planning to kill Mr. Taylor.”

  “I can’t believe it. Who would talk about murder on a shopping trip?”

  “You’re probably right. I suppose I just misunderstood. The Taylors don’t look like a family waiting for someone to be murdered.”

  “What?” Susan was perplexed. “When did you see them?”

  “The Taylors were sitting behind us. The people whose daughter ran out,” she added when Susan didn’t respond.

  “You’re kidding. Are you sure?”

  “I heard Halsey say something to Mrs. Taylor—about working for her. I thought you heard it, too,” Kathleen explained. “Susan?”

  But Susan didn’t respond. She was wondering what sort of summer this was going to be when their nearest neighbors were a family comprised of a girl going through a turbulent adolescence and a father apparently hated so much that people spoke of killing him while they were selecting cornflakes. And one of the things she had treasured so about her island in Maine was how little it changed from year to year!

  But, as Susan was to tell her husband on the phone late that night, it wasn’t until she and Kathleen found that the barrier keeping them from driving down the road to the cottage had been unlocked that she realized this wasn’t going to be an ordinary summer vacation.

  “Probably Burt came back and unlocked it,” Jed insisted rather sleepily.

  “I know I woke you up, hon, but at least you could listen to me,” Susan insisted, sipping a steaming cup of herb tea. “Mrs. Jamison said that there is no way to reach him in Canada.…”

  “Maybe they got up there and the boats were missing or there was a snowstorm.… Okay,” he added before she could interrupt him. “I know it’s July, so snow is out, but maybe the trip had to be canceled for some reason and they returned and, when he got home, his wife told him that you needed to have the chain unlocked and so he came over and did it. You could call there, you know,” he added more gently.

  “It’s awful late.” Susan glanced at the clock; it was midnight. “And you know how early everyone goes to bed on the island.”

  “Yes, so …”

  “But you’re probably right and there is nothing to worry about. I suppose Mrs. Jamison found the key and came over and unlocked the chain. I shouldn’t have awakened you.”

  Perversely, Jed seemed inclined to take the opposite side of any discussion. “Maybe you should call the police to check things out. I’m a little worried about you and Kathleen. You’re all alone on that side of the cove and—”

  “Oh, no, we’re not,” she protested. “That’s the other thing I wanted to tell you. The Taylors are here. And they’re really weird, Jed.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, their teenage daughter ran out of The Blue Mussel tonight crying.… All right,” she interrupted herself before he could. “I know teenagers are unpredictable, but that isn’t all,” she continued, and explained about the mother’s mood swings and the anticipated death of the father. “But it all sounds pretty insignificant when I tell you,” she admitted. “I’m probably just tired. It was a long drive today, and moving in is always a lot of work—it might have been easier if we hadn’t been able to get to the house and had had to leave everything in the car overnight. I’m sure glad Halsey is coming over tomorrow to help with the shutters and everything.”

  “You really should go to sleep—don’t stay awake worrying about the Taylors. We don’t have to see very much of them, remember. And first impressions aren’t always accurate.”

  “I know,” she admitted. “You’re right; I’m being silly.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You thought it and you were just too polite to say anything—and I appreciate it. Are you packed for your trip tomorrow? What time does your flight leave?”

  “No, and nine-thirty.”

  “In the morning? And you’re not packed? How are you going to get to Kennedy before nine? There’ll be rush-hour traffic.…”

  “La Guardia. And I have to pick up Jerry on the way. Don’t worry, I have the alarm set for six.…”

  “Then you shouldn’t be up. You should get to bed right away,” Susan insisted, forgetting that her call was the reason he was awake.

  And he was nice enough not to mention it. “I’ll be fine,” was all Jed said. “Don’t worry about me; I can nap on the plane.”

  “Will you call tomorrow night?”

  “Don’t I always? I’m sorry I don’t have the name of the hotel we’re at.…”

  “I’m sure Kathleen does. She’s suffering acute withdrawal symptoms from her family. But you’d better get to sleep,” Susan suggested to her husband, and after a few parting words, she followed her own suggestion.

  The wind blew through the trees, a red fox climbed onto the porch and sniffed at the front door, and out on the point, a little thirteen-year-old girl in a big house cried herself to sleep.

  THREE

  Kathleen heard a scream. It woke her up and she climbed from the warm bed, tightly wrapped a flannel robe around her to keep out the early morning chill, and walked barefoot downstairs to the living room. Morning wasn’t exactly her favorite time of day, and certainly this particular morning wasn’t improved by the sight of a dead man sitting in one of the armchairs that stood on either side of the stone fireplace. Susan and Halsey Downing waited nearby.

  Susan was the first to speak. “Did you call the police?”

  “You need a police officer?” Kathleen asked, apparently sleepy enough to forget the years she had been employed in that capacity in both New York City and Connecticut.

  “Didn’t you hear me yelling? I wanted you to call the police,” Susan explained. “The number’s hanging next to the phone in the kitchen.”

  Kathleen ignored her and walked over to the body and gently touched the man’s forehead.

  Susan watched intently, then glanced at Halsey. “Why don’t you call the police?” she suggested. The girl looked as if she was going to faint—she was better off someplace else. Susan and Kathleen were, unfortunately, more accustomed to dead bodies.

  “I’ll …” Halsey began, and then apparently felt an exit would be a good idea. Instead of the kitchen, she fled up the stairs. Susan recognized the sound of the bathroom door slamming.

  “Poor kid,” Kathleen commented.

  “I hat
e it when children are involved with murder,” Susan commented almost absently, watching as Kathleen peered under the dead man’s eyelid.

  “It’s a little early to think of murder, isn’t it?”

  “Either someone killed him, put him in that chair, and covered him up, or else he sat down, died, and then covered himself up.”

  “Rigor is beginning to pass,” Kathleen said, nodding.

  “He’s been dead for a while, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he’s been sitting in that chair for a while, too.”

  “Probably.”

  “We spent the night in the house with a dead man.”

  Kathleen sighed. “It looks like it.”

  “How can you be so calm?” Halsey whimpered from the top of the stairs.

  Susan and Kathleen exchanged looks. What could they say, Don’t worry, you get used to it? “It’s easier to deal with these things when you’re older,” Kathleen suggested.

  Susan didn’t say anything.

  “Did you call the police?” Kathleen asked.

  “On the way,” Halsey answered, returning to the room.

  “Halsey’s uncle is the sheriff,” Susan explained.

  “But he’s off island right now. My grandfather had a stroke in Florida last week, and my uncle had to fly down and find someplace for him to stay when he gets out of the hospital. It looks like the only person who can help us is Aunt Janet.”

  “Halsey’s aunt and uncle are the sheriff and deputy on the island,” Susan explained.

  “His wife is his deputy?” Kathleen asked.

  “Every other year,” Halsey said, sounding a little more like herself. “This year she’s deputy and he’s sheriff, and next year she’ll be sheriff and he’ll be her deputy. They have a liberated marriage,” she explained needlessly.

  “I guess so,” Kathleen agreed. “But have you had a murder on the island before?”

  “Two. The first was back when I was a kid. One of the lobstermen killed another—said he had been stealing from his traps for years. The murderer just sat down by the body and waited for the police to come. He said any Maine jury would understand what he did and why he did it. Of course, it turned out he was wrong: he’s still in prison. And then last summer there was another killing. They weren’t islanders, though, just tourists camping out down near the island nature center. A man shot his girlfriend and then stuck the gun in his mouth and killed himself.” She shivered. “They were found by a woman whose husband owns a nearby farm. She says she still has nightmares about it.”

  “But in both those cases, the murderer was known, so no one on the island has had to find a murderer.”

  “Nooo …” Halsey strung out the vowel for a few extra seconds. “But there’s a big section of mystery novels in the library, and they’re real popular. I’ll bet there will be a lot of people that think solving our own murder is pretty interesting.”

  “Then they’ll be wrong. Murder sucks.”

  The three women spun around and stared at the apparition standing in the open door to the house. A woman, probably in her late fifties or early sixties, Kathleen guessed from the gray hair and her windburned and wrinkled face, stood before them. Short and heavy, in fatigue pants, much-worn rubber boots, and a chamois shirt of international orange, she looked slightly like a pumpkin.

  “Not that there’s much I can do about this one,” the woman continued, walking across the floor to the body. “Looks pretty dead, doesn’t he?” she asked dispassionately. “Wonder who smacked him with that bait bag. And what was in it when they did.”

  “What?” Susan had no idea what Janet Shapiro was talking about.

  “See that imprint on his temple? Unless I’m crazy, that was made by a bait bag going about fifty miles an hour and weighed down with something pretty heavy. The crisscross pattern in the skin was made by the woven twine—it’s a pretty distinctive design. Although I suppose it might have been made by a handwoven purse or something similar.” She removed her glasses for a close look. “Damn bifocals,” she explained. “Can’t see with ’em. Can’t see without ’em. Of course, without is considerably cheaper.” She grinned at her own cleverness.

  “Are bait bags rare on the island?” Kathleen was anxious to return to their more immediate problem.

  “Not on this island. Each lobsterman has about a hundred or so. And this one was probably filled with a heavy rock. You’ve seen our boulder beaches—rocks is one of the things we have more of than we have bait bags. They might be hard to find on Maui or one of the Aleutians, but on this island, they’d be easy to find once you thought it all out. Makes a kind of ingenious murder weapon, doesn’t it? Snatch a bait bag or just pick up one that floated to shore during the last storm, stuff a rock inside, spin it around your head like a sling back in Roman times …” She paused and shook her head. “Ingenious. And that takes brains. And in my experience, brains are just as rare on this island as in any other part of the world.

  “Not that I think it’s going to be easy to find the murderer of Humphrey Taylor,” she continued. “From what I hear, there’s lots of people who would of liked to see him dead.” She looked away from the body to the two women. “From the looks on your faces, I can see that the sight isn’t pleasing you two all that much.”

  “Who is Humphrey Taylor and why is he dead in my living room?” Susan asked, getting right down to what she considered essentials.

  “Why, Humphrey Taylor is your new next-door neighbor. Don’t tell me you didn’t recognize him? I just assumed that you knew who he was. Why, Halsey should have known him right away.… Or maybe she wouldn’t.…” Her voice trailed off.

  “I just talked with Mrs. Taylor when she offered me the job,” Halsey assured her aunt. “I did see Mr. Taylor, of course.… I mean he was around … but I didn’t get a good look at him. And … and I didn’t look too closely at him just now.… ” She stopped and took a deep breath, and Susan, afraid the girl was going to throw up again, started toward her. “I’m all right. Really,” Halsey insisted. “It’s so shocking. So upsetting. I guess, when I saw the body sitting there, I just didn’t think.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” her aunt insisted. “Mrs. Taylor is going to have to identify her husband’s body, not you. Something wrong, Mrs. Henshaw?”

  Susan had been staring intently at the dead man. The bait bag, the rock, or whatever had hit him had crushed his right temple, damaged the eye socket and part of his cheekbone, but most of his face was still visible, and something was puzzling her. “This is not the man we saw at The Blue Mussel last night.”

  “And it should be?” the policewoman asked.

  “I didn’t know who it was at the time, but I thought the Taylors were sitting at the table behind ours,” Susan said slowly. “You know,” she continued to Halsey, “the table where the girl was so upset that she ran away.”

  “Oh.” Halsey nodded her head. “That was the Taylors. But that was the first Mr. Taylor, not the current Mr. Taylor. That was Mr. Ted Taylor; he’s the girl’s father. Mr. Humphrey Taylor is the … was the,” she corrected herself with a shudder, “stepfather.”

  “Mrs. Taylor—” Kathleen began.

  “Tricia Taylor,” Aunt Janet said, nodding to show that she knew who was being talked about.

  “Tricia Taylor married two men with the same last name?” Kathleen continued her question.

  “Stands to reason that they did. They were brothers, after all.”

  “Wait a second here,” Susan insisted. “You’re telling me that Tricia Taylor divorced Ted Taylor and then married his brother, Humphrey Taylor?”

  Aunt Janet nodded.

  “So her daughters’ stepfather is also their uncle?”

  “Yup. People around here think it might be a little confusing for those girls—especially the youngest.”

  Susan considered that an understatement—a magnificent understatement. No wonder the family appeared to be in such turmoil in the restaurant last night. And
if that much emotion was apparent in a public place, what was going on behind closed doors? She looked down at Humphrey Taylor and wondered if his death was the answer to that question. His murder, she amended her thought. “And both the current husband and the ex-husband are on the island?” she asked.

  “Well—” Susan wondered if she saw a sparkle in Aunt Janet’s eye “—at least the current Mr. Taylor is on the island. I’m sure we’re going to want to know exactly where the other Mr. Taylor is—and where he’s been for the past day or so, of course.”

  “You think he killed him!” Halsey was too excited to explain, but everyone understood what—and who—she meant.

  “I don’t know who killed him.” The girl’s aunt stared at her sternly. “I do know that we’re going to regret talk like that. Now, Halsey, I have to make a few phone calls, and I’m sure Mrs. Henshaw won’t mind me using her phone. I want you to run next door and see if the Taylors—the rest of the family—are home. Don’t go knocking on the door, and don’t tell anyone about this. Just look around, make a mental note of what you see, and that’s it. And then I want you to head out to the main road. Just wait on that rock down by the turn-in. There’s going to be ambulances and police cars from off island, and who knows what else. They’re going to have to know exactly where we are, and you can direct them. But—” she raised her already impressive voice “—you are not to tell anyone about this. Not if you see a car marked state police, not even if you see a car marked God. You are there to direct traffic—not to spread around news that’s nobody’s business right now. Do you understand exactly what I’m saying?”

  “I …”

  “It’s important, Halsey. Maybe the most important thing you’ve ever done.”

  Halsey was obviously impressed with her aunt’s statement, and Susan was amused to note that she almost saluted as she raced from the room. Susan, too, thought Janet Shapiro was pretty impressive. “What do you want us to do?” she asked.