Murder in Mystic Cove

by Daryl Anderson

  The danger begins in the past, as does my story. These are the main characters: Chris Silver, Jacob Bradley, Katherine Henderson. Infamous names from an infamous time, the sixties.

  They were part of the Weather Underground, a group of radicals intent on the destruction of America. These traitors took the revolution to the streets of America, lighting up the decade with a series of bombings. One night in San Francisco a young policeman lost his life when one of the deadly bombs exploded. Again the same names were whispered: Chris Silver, Jacob Bradley, Katherine Henderson.

  In the spring of 1972 the three fugitives were holed up in a Greenwich Village townhouse. Chris Silver and Jacob Bradley were assembling a nail bomb in the basement of a Greenwich Village townhouse when the bomb detonated, seriously injuring both men. Unfortunately Katherine Henderson had not been at home at the time of the blast. By the time the police sorted it out, she had vanished into infamy.

  Still, there was a measure of justice. Silver died of his injuries, and after a contentious trial Bradley was made to pay for his heinous crimes. But since that spring day in New York City when God caught up with the two traitors, no one has seen or heard of Katherine Henderson.

  Until now!

  Like the snake she is, Katherine Henderson shed her former skin. She assumed an alias, married, and had children, reaping the benefits of living in this greatest of all countries, America. Astonishingly, she chose to live out her golden years in our paradise of Mystic Cove.

  Study the photograph above and look into the face of evil. It is Katherine Henderson, murderess, but you know her as TALLY RAND!

  I did as Mel bade and looked into the young woman’s face. It was the sort of picture you’d find in your grandmother’s photo album. At first I thought that was why it seemed so familiar, but then it clicked. I had seen the same photo in Kristin Donald’s book, I Am Not a Witch, alongside mug shots of Chris Silver and Jacob Bradley, whom Donald had prosecuted. My assessment of Mel’s journalistic talent had been accurate. He’d just gotten lucky. When he came across the picture of Katherine Henderson in Kristin Donald’s book, he’d recognized her as Tally Rand. But was he right?

  In the photo a young woman leaned against a picket fence, laughing. White-capped mountains rose in the distance. I squinted at the lost girl. A helmet of thick brown hair hung over her face, brown eyes peeked out from behind tortoiseshell glasses, and her smile was so deep, her cheeks puffed like two fat apples. The smiling young woman in the photo was long gone. The face had aged and thinned, but it looked like Tally’s.

  But I had to be sure, absolutely sure, before I called Brad. More to the point, once the authorities were involved, my access to the Rands would be denied, or at least dependent on the will of others. Now, I could care less about Katherine or Tally, but if I was to get to the bottom of Mel’s murder, I needed to face the Rands alone, without the police.

  Patting the Glock in my shoulder holster, I glanced around the vacant parking lot. No one in sight. As I hustled to the path that would bring me to Admiral Street, I felt unseen eyes upon me, a sick fancy that passed only when I was deep in Birnam Wood.

  Fifteen minutes later I stood outside the Rand home. Someone was home. A dim light shone from the living room—either a table lamp or perhaps just the television. I walked to the portico and rang the bell. It was a little late for visitors, and the Rands would be wary, but somehow I knew they would answer. They tottered on the edge of disaster and could not ignore the bell when it tolled.

  The porch light lit and the door opened.

  “Hello, Kathy,” I said.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” she said in a small voice.

  I understood, or thought I did. Standing behind her in the foyer. Alan Rand was pale and trembling, but the pistol he aimed at my heart was steady enough.

  * * *

  We were in the darkened living room. We had been there for hours—Tally and I sitting side-by-side on the sofa while Alan bounced around the room like a mouse in a maze, twitching for a way out.

  “Did you call the police?” Alan asked again.

  “No, Alan. No one knows I’m here.” I spoke in as calm a voice as I could manage. Alan Rand was a man without a plan and that made him dangerous. In my favor, the fool hadn’t even searched me. I felt the weight of the holstered Glock. Please, Alan, don’t make me use it.

  “Alan, dear,” Tally said, rising to her feet.

  “What are you doing?” Alan’s head snapped round.

  “I thought I’d make some tea.”

  “Tea?” For a moment I feared he would laugh. “No, no tea. Sit down. Please.” Tally sat back down. It wasn’t her first move to escape Alan’s eyes—she was as much a prisoner as I.

  “Alan, you must stop peeking out the window every two seconds. Addie is telling you the truth. If she had called the authorities they would have been here by now—it’s been so long.”

  “Listen to her,” I said. “The police don’t know about Katherine.”

  “Don’t say that name—that’s not her name.” Alan walked from the window and sat on the bottom step of the staircase. Every few seconds his gaze shifted from Tally and me on the sofa and back to the front window.

  “You’re wrong about everything!” Tally’s voice broke, like a pipe under pressure. “Why won’t you listen to me?” She turned to me. “All of this has been harder on Alan than me.”

  “All of what?” I asked.

  “Quiet, you!” Alan warned.

  “Alan hadn’t known about Kathy Henderson until Mel told him. I had almost forgotten about her myself. It’s all so strange, like a dream. It was so long ago and I was a different person. But I guess the past doesn’t go away.”

  “Not for long anyway,” I said.

  “Quiet, both of you.” Alan sat on the last rung of the staircase, looking like a lost little boy.

  Tally cast a pitying look at her husband. “I knew I was doomed once Mel learned about my past, but poor Alan kept trying to make things right. He thought he’d be able to convince Mel to change his mind, but Mel doesn’t change his mind. Not ever.”

  I was in a peculiar position. Either Tally or Alan had shot Mel Dick—at the moment my money was on Alan—but technically neither was a murderer. I’d gone back and forth about sharing this information with the Rands, but Alan was too unstable to listen and Tally...well, I just wasn’t sure about Tally.

  “Mel wouldn’t listen,” Alan Rand said from the stairs. “He showed me that awful article.”

  “I wanted to turn myself in, but Alan wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “Mel told me he was going to publish the article in the Commentator,” Alan said, “but because I was a friend he was giving me a chance to ‘do the right thing.’ He actually expected me to turn against my wife—my wife! Mel Dick destroyed my life as carelessly as he would smash a mosquito.” Alan started pacing again.

  Tally half rose and murmured, “Oh, Alan!”

  “Sit down, Tally!” Alan hissed. “It’s never going to end, is it? I just want it to end!”

  It was going south fast—Alan Rand was bouncing off the walls and talking a mile a minute, but his eyes were no longer on me. Carefully, so carefully, I eased the Glock from the holster and lay it on my right, tucked in the space between the sofa’s arm and cushion.

  “Mel said I could appear at the news conference after Tally was arrested. When I saw that our friendship meant nothing to him, I tried to bribe him.” Alan’s voice boomed through the house. “I offered him everything I had—money, political connections, my very soul, if he wanted it! All he had to do was forget about Kathy Henderson.”

  “Alan,” Tally sobbed.

  Alan’s pigeon chest heaved, his breaths ragged. “I told Mel nobody cares about the Weathermen or this Henderson woman.”

  “Tally is tired,” I told
Alan. “She needs to rest now. Let me take her to bed.”

  “I didn’t know what to do,” he said, “but I couldn’t let the police take you away.”

  “I’m tired, Alan, so very tired.”

  “I’m tired too, Tally, but we have to stay together. I’ll never let you go.”

  “But she just wants to rest for a little while,” I said. “Let me take her upstairs.”

  “You!” Alan cried. “What do you care? You’re not Tally’s friend. You’re not my friend. You’re here to find Mel’s murderer. Nobody cares who killed that piece of crap! What’s that?”

  Blue lights danced over the walls, casting ominous shadows. Alan Rand rushed to the window, peeked out. An anguished moan like that of a wounded animal.

  “It’s the police!” Alan shouted, brandishing his gun. “You lied! You lied!” He sobbed and fell silent.

  I was on my feet, knees locked, both hands gripping my weapon. From somewhere far away Tally screamed and someone pounded the door. But Alan Rand and I stood like two gunfighters in an old-timey Saturday matinee.

  “Drop the gun, Alan. It’s over.” And it was—I caught Brad in the corner of my eye. He stood in the hallway, weapon drawn and aimed at Alan Rand.

  Still, the old man did not move, the raised pistol shaking in his frail hands. And then something broke inside. Alan sobbed and took a deep breath. “I shot Mel Dick. I blew his brains out with his own gun.”

  “No, Alan!” Tally screamed. “You’re wrong!”

  “I killed the bastard. I shot him dead.” Smiling, Alan lowered his arm and let the gun fall from his grasp. In a flash, Brad was on him, slapping cuffs on bony wrists.

  “You’re hurting him!” Tally cried.

  I grabbed her, held her tight. “Alan’s all right.” Only who was I kidding? Alan Rand was about as far from all right as a man could be, lying on the floor like a sack of flour or a puppet with broken strings.

  Outside the frantic yelp of a GCSO cruiser announced that backup had arrived. While GCSO took control of the scene, Brad looked to me for an explanation.

  I gestured at Tally Rand. “Sheriff, say hello to Katherine Henderson.”

  * * *

  After heating up my coffee, Brad took his seat. He looked tired; I didn’t want to think what I looked like. The hours since Alan Rand’s confession to a false murder had passed in a haze, but slowly the haze was clearing.

  “Brad, you never did explain how you showed at the Rands when you did.”

  “After I got your text saying you were headed to the Cove, I called you back, but you didn’t pick up. I even called your home phone and talked to your dad. At first I wasn’t concerned and figured you would call when you were good and ready, but when the night dragged on and there was still no news, I got worried.” Brad drank his coffee, shrugged. “I figured it wouldn’t hurt to drive to the Cove and have a look-see. At Founder’s Centre, I spotted the Crown Vic in the Grub and Grog parking lot. So naturally I made a bullet for the Rand house.”

  “Why naturally?”

  He gave me a level look. “Because that was the one place you weren’t supposed to go.”

  “Oh.”

  “All’s well that ends well.”

  “Has it ended well?”

  “At this point I’m happy with any ending to this screwup.” Brad tapped the yellow legal pad on his desk. “I gotta say, this is as pretty a murder confession as I’ve ever seen. Too bad there’s no murder to go along with it.”

  “So you think Alan is telling the truth.”

  “I do,” he said, sliding the pad over, “but go ahead and read it for yourself.”

  I smiled my thanks.

  I acted alone. The murder, from inception to execution, was mine. My wife had no knowledge of and took no part in this crime.

  It began the day after Mel’s birthday dinner. Mel called and asked that I drop by the newspaper office. I assumed he wanted to discuss November’s Cove Commentator. It turned out that my assumption was correct, though hardly in the way I imagined.

  We had drinks, my first clue that Mel was in a celebratory mood. Then he showed me the reason for his cheer, an article he planned to publish in next month’s Commentator. In a matter of minutes I read the words that would destroy my life. Incredibly, the article claimed that my wife was this fugitive Katherine Henderson. “Is this a joke?” I asked Mel.

  He smiled and said, “It’s not a joke, but it is sort of funny.” I’ll never forget that smile, that smug grin. Maybe that’s when I decided to kill him.

  At first I didn’t believe any of it, but the photo of Katherine Henderson was my Tally. When I asked Mel why he told me of his plan, he seemed surprised and said, “Because you’re my friend.” He wanted to give me the chance to distance myself from my wife; he even offered to let me attend the press conference he intended to hold after the story was broken.

  Over the next weeks I begged Mel to suppress the article for the sake of our long friendship. He refused. I appealed to logic—no one cared about this Katherine Henderson person!—but he wouldn’t listen. I even tried bribery, but I had nothing Mel wanted. I pleaded, but Mel wouldn’t relent. I grew more desperate, the first of November hovering like an executioner’s axe. Then came my chance, that night at the Grub and Grog.

  Tally and I had gone to the pub for drinks. We saw Mel and Anita there, but said nothing to them. Mel was dazed. Of course his strange behavior was the talk of Mystic Cove. Busy Rhodes said Mel had Alzheimer’s, and even Mel’s girlfriend Gigi Tajani whispered that Mel’s memory was Swiss cheese. Fairley Sable called him hot as a hare and dry as a bone. Initially I thought they exaggerated Mel’s decline, but when I saw him at the G and G that night I knew they’d understated the depth and breadth of his madness.

  After Mel verbally attacked us, his former friends, at the pub, Tally and I returned home, having no wish to be present when the police arrived. Tally went to sleep, but I couldn’t rest. There were mere days left before the fatal blow would fall. I had to make Mel see reason! I decided to make one last effort.

  I had just left my house when I saw Mel’s golf cart bolt onto Admiral Street, obviously coming from Gigi Tajani’s townhouse. I watched it turn into Birnam Wood and followed.

  Mel hadn’t gone far. I found him parked in a small clearing, a place he often went to. I walked up to the cart, not sure what I was going to do, but when I reached it I saw, lying on the passenger’s seat, a gun. I grabbed the weapon, aimed at Mel’s right temple, and fired.

  When I returned home. I locked the murder weapon inside my safe and waited for the night. I knew that for Tally to be safe I must destroy all evidence of Tally’s true identity.

  While Tally slept I went to Mel’s office, using a key I’d retained from when I was editor of the Commentator. I erased all traces of Katherine Henderson from Mel’s computer. Now there was only the gun to be disposed of.

  That evening I rolled our trash receptacle to the curb for morning pickup. I looked up and down—a row of garbage cans lined Admiral Street. In the dead of night I retrieved the weapon from my safe, slipped outside and dropped it into the Dicks’ trash can.

  I never meant for suspicion to fall on Anita Dick. My only thought was to be rid of the gun. I am sorry about Anita.

  “Quite a piece of writing,” I said.

  “It is what it is, Addie, but it fits with the facts.”

  “Not perfectly.”

  “Rand knows details about the murder that weren’t released to the public—that Dick was shot in the right temple, for one.”

  “But Rand doesn’t mention stealing the hard drive from Mel’s home computer. And what about the missing office key? If Rand didn’t take the office key off of Mel’s body, who did?”

  “Maybe Mel lost it in his travels. Maybe he left it in the office.”
r />   “And the poisoned tea?”

  Brad rubbed his tired face. “Rand vehemently denies any knowledge of that, and I believe him. Why admit to shooting Mel and not cop to tampering with the tea?” He gave me an astute look. “You know damn well who poisoned Mel’s tea, Addie.”

  “I do?”

  “You may not like it, but the jimsonweed tea was Anita getting her jollies off.” He smiled in that self-satisfied way men have. “In a way I was right—Anita was responsible for her husband’s death, though I don’t think she meant for him to die. The jimsonweed tea and the shock and stress from the initial gunshot wound precipitated Mel’s fatal heart attack, which was unlucky for Mel, but incredibly lucky for Rand. Case closed.”

  “But if Rand shot Mel, why did he accuse José of the crime? Wouldn’t it have been smarter to just lay low?”

  “Maybe he was fishing for a fall guy.”

  “Not the smartest move,” I countered.

  “And since when are murderers smart?”

  “This one is.”

  “But now that I think about it,” Brad continued, “the deal with Barracas might have been a slick move on Rand’s part. Don’t forget that Alan Rand is a lawyer—he can’t help but think like one. He knew that Mel planned to expose Barracas as a pimp. Maybe Rand was trying to establish reasonable doubt by bringing another suspect to light.”

  “I suppose it’s possible. Before the shit hit the fan, I’m sure Mel told Alan about the prostitution story. Of course, once Mel ran across Tally’s picture in Donald’s book, all bets were off. He forgot about José’s transgression and went after the bigger story.” I stifled a yawn and added, “But your theory is still pretty farfetched.”

  “So only your farfetched ideas deserve consideration?”

  I had to laugh. “Look, I don’t know what part of Rand’s statement is true, and what is false, but he’s not being completely honest with us. I mean, he says that Tally was in the dark about Mel’s plans—that’s total bullshit! She knew everything. He’s lying to protect Tally.”