Boston Scream Murder

by Ginger Bolton

Above the mist, I saw the dark silhouette of a head, shoulders, and, occasionally, a hand at the top of the paddle. It was eerie. Without coming close to the beach where I sat uneasily peering over my steering wheel, the canoer headed down the middle of the lake toward Hank’s and Rich’s houses.

  Had he seen the moon reflecting off my windshield either of the times he’d canoed past? Had he noticed that a kayak had appeared on top of the car between his trips across the lake?

  I could no longer hear the rattling pickup truck. I didn’t want to get out of my car, but I needed to see where that canoe went. Leaving the door open, I ran lightly through the stony sand to the water’s edge.

  The beach was lower than my car, and all I could see of the person piloting the canoe was a stocking cap. I guessed he was Hank, returning home.

  Where was Terri? Had she or an investigator been inside Rich’s house with a light? Maybe all I’d seen was the reflection of an unusually bright star or of an airplane flying too high for me to hear.

  I couldn’t see Hank’s or Rich’s homes or docks. When the person in the canoe went out of sight, I returned to my car and this time I closed the door. Quietly. The entire time that person had been canoeing, he hadn’t banged his paddle against a gunwale. Not once.

  I was almost certain that the canoer had gone from Hank’s beach to Rich’s little Cape Cod cottage and was probably returning to Hank’s beach. Had the canoer visited Terri in Rich’s cottage? If she was still in his cottage after he left, was she all right, or had the canoer done something to her? She was short. Maybe she’d been paddling in the bow of the canoe.

  Or lying in the bottom of it.

  It was nearly eleven thirty, but between adrenaline and the chilly insides of my car, I wasn’t sleepy.

  Besides, the sooner Rich’s murder was solved, the sooner Detective Gartborg might leave town. Brent and I might be able to kayak together on the moonlit, misty lake.

  I eased my car away from the beach and bumped it along the gravel road. Toward Rich’s cottage.

  A battered, rusting dark gray pickup truck was parked outside Rich’s cottage. Hairs on the back of my neck prickled as if my skin could warn that someone was watching me. I didn’t see anyone in or near the truck or the cottage, and yellow crime scene tape still surrounded the property.

  Regretting coming to this lonely spot late at night in a memorable car with a kayak on top, I turned around after the next curve in the road and headed back. I wanted to speed, but racing down that dirt road would be noisy, plus I needed to keep my eyes open for any clue about where Terri was, and if she was a murderer or being held captive—or worse—by one.

  The pickup truck was still parked near Rich’s cottage. I remembered to glance at its tires. The truck wasn’t a big one, and its tires did not appear to be much wider than a car’s or an SUV’s. Although I needed to be home with Dep, who might be missing me as much as I was missing her, I forced myself to drive slowly down the unpaved section of the road. I passed the driveway to the old log cabin, the public beach, and the narrow trail that led to the tiny cove.

  I drove a little more quickly after I reached the pavement, but I scanned Hank’s and Rich’s houses.

  As if the only light in Hank’s piano room came from the dying embers in his fireplace, barely any light shone from the back of his house to the trees near his beach.

  I saw no lights or other signs of life around Rich’s house, either.

  Chapter 20

  I tried not to accelerate around the curve that would take me to the road running up the hill and away from Lake Fleekom. At the top of the hill, I exhaled. I also turned up the heater.

  Kayaking on that lake had been beautiful, but now I was mainly aware of the sinister creepiness of being alone on a foggy lake when the only other people nearby could have been murderers desperate to keep their secrets.

  I was almost certain that Hank had been the person I’d seen paddle across the lake and back.

  I wasn’t positive that I’d seen a light moving inside Rich’s house, but if I had, who had been there?

  Meanwhile, someone had driven an old pickup truck to Rich’s cottage and parked it there. If Hank was the canoer, he couldn’t have been the driver of the truck. Who else would visit Rich’s taped-off cottage in the foggy, moonlit dark, and why? I couldn’t help picturing Derek. And Terri. Maybe looking for the kayaker they’d spotted out on the lake at night.

  Meanwhile, I hadn’t learned anything that made me think I needed to tell Brent I’d again gone kayaking on Lake Fleekom without him. The detectives were probably already looking into any connections that Hank might have had with Rich, Terri, and Rich’s late wife.

  Maybe the pickup driver was an undercover cop. If so, Brent probably already knew that I had driven past Rich’s cottage. He might also know that my car had been parked at the public beach and that I’d been out on a kayak. I half expected my phone to ring.

  At home, Dep greeted me as soon as I opened the front door. I picked her up and hugged her. “Am I ever glad to see you! Sorry for being out so late.” I told her about my fright when another cat had meowed with a voice that had sounded like hers. “I didn’t know how you could have gotten all the way to Lake Fleekom, Dep, but I was scared.”

  She purred.

  Although I had to work the next morning, I set my alarm for a half hour later than usual. Warmed by my cat and my happiness for Samantha and Hooligan, I fell asleep.

  Around three, I heard Dep puttering with squeaky and jingly toys. She returned to bed, and I drifted off again. She let me sleep until my alarm went off. Even though it was still dark, I had mostly forgotten the menacing chill of Lake Fleekom at night, and once again I smiled, thinking about the way Samantha and Hooligan had glowed at the party.

  I made a quick roasted-pepper and Gouda omelette. After my late night, I was going to need lots of coffee, but I could drink it at work, so I didn’t brew any at home. I put on my backpack, fastened Dep’s halter around her, and attached her leash.

  I thought I might need to carry her if the morning was chilly, but the brisk air seemed to make her frisky enough to dash, quickly switching directions and nearly tripping me, most of the way to work. We arrived on time.

  Again, Tom had turned on the gas fireplace in our kitty playground and office combination. I waved at him through the window from the office into the kitchen, removed Dep’s halter and leash, and went into the kitchen. A few minutes later, Nina was in the office talking to Dep. Wearing our donut-festooned hats and our logo-embroidered aprons, Tom, Nina, and I prepared our shop for another day of serving fun Halloween treats and warm, fragrant drinks to our customers.

  Cheryl showed up about five minutes earlier than the Knitpickers and the retired men usually arrived. I took her a mug of coffee. She cradled it in both hands as if they were cold. “Can I ask you something, Emily?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you think I could be in trouble with the police for being one of the first people to arrive at Rich’s party?”

  “What makes you think you’re in trouble?” I reminded myself of Brent, asking a question instead of answering.

  “I told them about meeting Rich here and that Rich had brought a different date to Deputy Donut that same afternoon. Rich’s behavior didn’t hurt me, far from it. I thought it was funny, especially considering that I was also with another date, but the detective from that Wisconsin bureau, whatever you call it—”

  “The Division of Criminal Investigation.”

  “Right. That glamorous woman with the smooth silver hair kept asking me how I felt when Rich came in with another woman. I forget how many ways she tried to get me to say I was so hurt and angry that I wanted revenge. But I wasn’t hurt or angry. I was amused. And why would I have wanted revenge? After that one hour of Rich going on and on about himself and about Boston, I had already decided not to meet him for more dates.”

  I patted Cheryl’s hand. “You told me that at the time. Don’t worry. They have to talk
to everyone who was at Rich’s on Tuesday morning. Sometimes the questioning can feel harsh, even though it’s not meant to be. Did Brent Fyne also talk to you?”

  “No, but I saw him, and I’d much rather talk to him.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. “Me, too.”

  She didn’t want a donut. “I’m meeting Steve here this afternoon. One a day is probably enough. One donut, that is.”

  Grinning, I went to the kitchen. Cheryl could pretend all she wanted that she wasn’t interested in a permanent man in her life, but she was certainly taking care of her appearance and concerned about her weight. From the kitchen, I glanced back at her as she greeted the other Knitpickers assembling around their usual table. Her jeans looked new, and she must have bought an entire wardrobe of sweaters. This one was butter yellow. Maybe she was completing her UFOs and wearing the new sweaters to Deputy Donut.

  That afternoon, she and Steve both ordered jack-o’-lantern donuts. They laughed when they saw the funny faces that Nina had given them. “Wait until you see the zombie Long John donuts she decorated,” I told them.

  “I’ll have one,” Steve said promptly.

  I took him the most disreputable-looking one that Nina had made that day. Cheryl said it was too much of an artwork to eat. Steve promptly broke it, exposing its vanilla cream filling, and gave her half. She blushed and protested. “But I can eat it now that you’ve ruined it.” She took a bite. “Yum!” Steve set the other half on his plate.

  I told him, “I hear you’re a writer. What do you write?”

  He gave a self-deprecatory shrug. “I’m freelance. At the moment, I’m doing research for an article about Wisconsin cheese for a trade journal.”

  Cheryl looked down at the jack-o’-lantern donut still intact on her plate. “You could write an article about donuts, or donut shops, or coffee. They make the best of everything here.”

  Steve said, “That could be better than sampling Wisconsin Limburger.”

  There was a commotion at the door, and Misty came in with Hooligan and a couple of other cops.

  I left Cheryl and Steve to discuss smelly cheeses while I took orders from the police officers.

  “You can’t keep calling yourself Hooligan!” one of the officers said. “And get married. Imagine the ceremony. ‘Do you take this Hooligan to be your awfully wedded husband?’ ”

  “You can call me Hoo,” Hooligan said, “Like ‘Hoo’s on first.’”

  “Do you take this Hoo to be your waffle-y wedded husband?” the man intoned.

  “Hoo who?” the other man asked.

  Ignoring them, Misty and I tried to guess when the wedding would be and if Samantha would powder her hair.

  I suggested, “She could heap artificial snow on it.”

  Misty rolled her eyes. “There’s also theatrical dye. It comes out when you wash your hair, but I don’t know how quickly. Maybe she’ll be able to go into the ocean with white hair during their honeymoon and come out a brunette.”

  I raised an index finger. “Maybe we should tag along and wear temporary hair dyes. She and Hooligan won’t recognize us until we come out of the ocean.”

  Misty turned her mouth down at the corners, giving herself a nearly tragic expression. “No wonder they’re not telling us where they’re going.”

  Hooligan must have heard her. “We haven’t decided yet.”

  I asked him, “And when you do, will you tell us?”

  “Probably not.” Already thinking about his and Samantha’s wedding reception, Hooligan wanted to try our daily special coffee, a medium roast from Panama, which was intensely flavorful with the tiniest hints of fruits and spices.

  The other two male officers wanted our regular medium-dark Colombian roast, and Misty opted for green tea. They let me choose their donuts, so I brought them each a cat donut. The cat faces were all different and not terribly scary. The police officers laughed and apologized to Dep through the office window before biting into the donuts.

  At Cheryl’s insistence, she and Steve split their bill. Cheryl paid with cash while Steve used a credit card. They were discussing touring donut and coffee shops in northern Wisconsin to research the article he would write after he submitted the cheese article. He warned Cheryl that he’d have to find a different trade journal because a cheese magazine probably wouldn’t be interested in donut and coffee shops. Cheryl winked at me. “Unless they’re cheesy,” she said. Waving, she went out of Deputy Donut ahead of Steve. He had eaten his half of the zombie donut, and his jack-o’-lantern donut was gone, but once again, he had slid the candy corn that had been the jack-o’-lantern donut’s eyes underneath the rim of his plate.

  The police officers left soon afterward. The rest of the afternoon, when we weren’t waiting on customers and making coffee, tea, and hot chocolate, we concentrated on preparing for the next day’s Halloween rush, plus my party and our orders for takeout. We made extra batches of both yeast dough and dough leavened with baking powder and baking soda.

  The last customers left a little past four thirty. We tidied the kitchen and the dining room, and then Tom left. Nina and I joined Dep in the office.

  “I’m thinking of taking a dozen donuts to Terri,” I told Nina. “I know they won’t be much of a consolation for a grieving person.”

  “Especially if you take her any Boston scream donuts, skulls, zombies, or ghosts.”

  “Maybe I should take six of the most cheerful jack-o’-lanterns and six of the cutest cats. I’m not sure she’s grieving, but it might be one way of trying to figure that out.”

  She slanted a perceptive look down at me. “You’re trying to solve Rich’s murder, aren’t you?”

  “I know better than to interfere, but it doesn’t hurt to learn as much as I can while maybe doing something nice for Terri.”

  “And helping your handsome detective.”

  I wasn’t going to give her more ammunition by again denying my ownership of Brent. “And his temporary boss,” I added.

  “Want me to come along?”

  “If you have time and want to.”

  She crossed her arms. “Want to? I’ll sulk all day tomorrow if I don’t.”

  “That wouldn’t be a good plan,” I teased. “Jocelyn’s working here tomorrow. You wouldn’t want her showing you up, would you?”

  “Ooooh. I see what you’re doing. Forcing us to compete with each other so we’ll work harder to show you that we’re both perfect.” The two women had worked together at Deputy Donut during the week before Jocelyn went to college. Both in their early twenties and each possessing a great work ethic and a lively sense of humor, they had hit it off.

  I admitted, “Both of you are perfect, and you’ll be even more perfect if you come along with me to try to talk to Terri. I’m never sure what to say to the bereaved.”

  “Or to people pretending to be bereaved. I’ll pack the donuts while you get Dep ready.”

  The two of us walked to my house with Dep, left her inside, and got into my car. Nina joked, “Too bad you don’t have something more subtle to drive while sleuthing.”

  “We’re not sleuthing. We’re on a mission of mercy. But just to be safe, I won’t park close to her town house. We’ll walk the rest of the way.”

  “Suits me,” said my assistant, who as far as I knew, walked nearly everywhere.

  This time, I didn’t drive past Terri’s first. I parked around the corner.

  Nina carried the box of donuts and adjusted her strides to my shorter ones. Above us, the setting sun painted rosy edges around lavender clouds.

  Even from several houses away, we saw Terri. She was standing in her front yard beside a heap of what looked like clothing.

  Chapter 21

  We turned off the sidewalk onto the path leading to Terri’s house. She looked up at us. Her blue blouse and khaki slacks were wrinkled and her eyelids were puffy. “I don’t know what to do.” She seemed to swallow a sob.

  I couldn’t tell whether she was crying about Rich’s death or
about the pile of clothing, shoes, magazines, makeup, and jewelry in her front yard, but I took the opportunity to offer condolences. Nina did, too. I added, “I know it won’t help or change anything, but we brought you some donuts, in case company drops in.”

  Terri wiped her eyes. “Rich and I finally got together after years of being apart, and now he’s gone. We hardly had any time together. I don’t think I can take it.”

  Nina looked down at the pile of belongings on the ground. “Are you moving out?” She was holding the donut box awkwardly as if she didn’t know what to do if Terri refused it.

  “No. My old boyfriend must have come here when I was . . .” Her mouth twisted. “While I was gone. He dumped everything I’d been keeping at his place. He could have asked me to come get the stuff. He didn’t have to make such a big deal. It’s like he wanted to hurt me by making certain that all of the neighbors see how angry he is.”

  I offered, “Would you like us to help you take everything inside?”

  “Would you?” She raised a tearful face and examined our expressions. “We can, I don’t know, maybe dump them on the living room floor. That would be better than here, and I can wash everything he touched.”

  Nina asked, “Do you have a laundry basket or something like that for us to carry the stuff in?”

  “Good idea.” Terri sounded less devastated. “I have three. I’ll go get them.” She held out her hands, palms up, toward Nina. “I’ll take those inside while I’m going.” Nina handed her the box of donuts.

  Nina and I waited outside. Terri returned with three wicker baskets. We helped her put the discarded belongings into them.

  Terri gasped and pulled a clamshell bowl like the one we’d seen at Rich’s cottage out from underneath a down-filled jacket.

  Trying to keep a neutral expression on my face, I glanced at Nina. Staring back at me, she opened her eyes wider for a second. She was probably as amazed as I was, and neither of us was terribly good at hiding it.

  I was trying to word a question, but Terri explained, “Rich meant to give this to me twenty years ago, but . . . things happened, and he didn’t. Derek could have broken it, carrying it in that old pickup truck of his.”