Murder in Mystic Cove

by Daryl Anderson

  I was suitably dressed in dark jeans, black leather gloves and boots, black satin blouse and charcoal tailored jacket, accessorized with shoulder holster and Glock loaded for bear. Red lipstick and mascara completed the picture of a Harvest Fest reveler who had taken a wrong turn into Birnam Wood. But more important, if Fairley monitored the GPS tracking device she’d attached to the Crown Vic, she would rest easy. The Vic was safely parked in Lady-in-the-Hills.

  “Your dad’s junker finally crap out?” Frankie had said when I’d asked to borrow his beater.

  “The Vic’s got plenty of life in her,” Pop groused.

  “The Vic’s fine. I just need another ride for tonight.”

  Frankie’s eyes popped and he looked at Pop, who gave a what-the-hell shrug. Without a word he dropped the keys in my hand.

  “One last thing,” I’d said, pulling on my jacket, “if you need to drive the Vic, go ahead—just stay the hell away from Mystic Cove.”

  And now it was showtime. I touched up my lipstick, stuffed the small flashlight into a jean pocket, and stepped into the cool night.

  It was just past seven and Harvest Fest was in full swing. The thump-thump-thump of old disco tunes drifted over Mystic Cove like an invading fog. I walked fast, my mind a beehive. Mystic Cove festivals started early and ended earlier. Although the festival would limp on until its official closing time of eleven, by nine o’clock, nine-thirty at the latest, most Mystic Cove residents would be tucked in tight, perhaps enjoying a final nightcap before taking to their beds. No matter what, I needed to be out of Fairley’s house by eight-thirty. With no complications, I would have an hour to complete my search. Would that be enough time?

  It would have to be.

  I wasn’t sure what I hoped to find in Fairley’s lair. A bag of bones, crystal jars marked with skull-and-crossbones, a manifesto written in the blood of husbands? I slowed my pace, having reached a poorly lit patch of trail, but then these trails were made for daylight traveling, not midnight strolls. I thought I heard a rustling to my right. I danced my flashlight over the shrubbery—nothing. I shivered. It felt colder than the predicted forty degrees, and there was a lull in the far-off music. Only the sound of Mystic Cove breathing.

  I shook off my anxiety and continued, but for some reason my legs wanted to break into a run. If I didn’t get control of my fear, I would be a basket case by the time I got to Azimuth Circle. Just then a rapid crunch and crackle sounded from the undergrowth, again from my right and rapidly approaching. A form emerged.

  We stared at one another in the darkness. I was about to get into character—Can you tell me the way to Founder’s Centre?—when my flashlight caught brown khaki. It just kept getting better. Please, don’t be Tyler Andrews.

  “Who’s there?” I asked.

  The shadow relaxed. “Chief?”

  “Jesse,” I said, passing my flashlight over Jesse Potts’s smiling face. “What are you doing in the middle of Birnam Wood?”

  “I’m working the Admiral Street guardhouse. Oscar was late in giving me my break and I just couldn’t wait any longer to go. I’m sorry.”

  I shook a finger at my former guard. “You need to stop drinking those Big Gulps, Jesse. If you get caught taking nature breaks in the woods, you’re gonna get fired. And you don’t need to apologize to me about anything. I’m not your chief anymore.”

  “So where you headed?”

  “I was at Harvest Fest and thought I’d drop by and check on Julie Breyer.”

  “No sense you walking. My cart’s hid in the clearing. I didn’t want nobody seeing me. Come on. Nobody will mind my giving you a lift, seeing as you’re a local celebrity and all.”

  A local celebrity soon to be uncovered as a local criminal nut-job, I thought as I fell in beside Jesse. I had lied myself into a corner and now had no choice but to go with the flow.

  When we reached the cart, I stopped short. “Jesse, is this...?”

  “Yup, the same place you found Mr. Dick. I walk out here a lot, thinking about Mr. Dick. Do you think we’ll ever know the truth?”

  While we drew closer to Admiral Street, I searched for a way out of this. It was hard to concentrate with Jesse babbling nonstop, like a kid on Santa’s lap. I might loiter on the Dick porch until Jesse moved on or, if he lingered, as I suspected he would, I could ring Julie’s bell and go inside. A quick visit, and then I’d make my excuses and head for Azimuth Circle. But these thoughts and all others flew from my head when Jesse let out a whoop and slammed the brakes.

  “I forgot! Mr. and Mrs. Breyer left for dinner not fifteen minutes ago.”

  Someone else, someone smarter than I, would have packed it in then and there. It took brains and a certain kind of wisdom to know when to surrender. I had neither. “I’ll just wait for them,” I said, hopping from the cart. We were on Admiral Street, less than a block from the Dick residence.

  “But they just left. They won’t be home for hours.”

  “Thanks for the ride, Jesse,” I said, already walking away.

  I exhaled when I heard the receding whine of the golf cart. I was in the clear.

  If Jesse hadn’t shown, the path through Birnam Wood would have dropped me directly onto Azimuth Circle. Now I could either travel to Fairley’s den via the streets or take a shortcut through several backyards, which would undoubtedly trigger motion lights and maybe even house alarms. I could risk no further encounters, and so chose the streets, though I didn’t stray from the shadows. At last I stood in Fairley’s verdant backyard.

  I looked about wildly. The bronze urn of impatiens under which the house key lay was gone. Had all this been for nothing? Then I realized my mistake. The planter was there, but the impatiens had turned to mush in the recent cold, not a single bloom spared. I nudged the planter and scooped up the key when my gaze fell on Fairley’s garden.

  The bright moonlight illumined the fairy landscape. My eyes were first drawn to the bench where Anita and I had talked, only a few days ago. A lifetime ago. The recent cold had been cruel to many of the plants. Brown splotches mixed with green but the large white trumpet flowers were still triumphant, drooping from the arbor like hanged men.

  I tore off one of the lovely blooms. Instinctively I sniffed. My head drew back, repelled by the rank odor. Too late I recalled that Datura stramonium was sometimes called stinkweed. It had earned that name, as it had earned all its names—mad apple, devil’s weed, angel’s trumpet. I thought of Fairley at Harvest Fest, an angel in white chiffon and plastic wings swathed in gauze. I stuffed the deadly flowers into a pocket and made for the house.

  The kitchen was distressingly normal, the cabinets stocked with pasta and cans of tomato paste. For a second I thought I’d found the mother lode in Fairley’s herb cupboard, which included several small jars of dried leaves and seeds, all unlabeled. I opened one of the jars and sniffed. Oregano. The other containers were also innocuous: dill, basil, rosemary. At first glance the refrigerator was another disappointment—skim milk, orange juice, mustard—until I pulled out the produce tray. Beneath the onions and potatoes lay a bag of syringes, a nest of sleeping vipers.

  The first bedroom was unoccupied, holding only a double bed and a stack of cardboard boxes. I stomped to the other side of the house, time nipping at my heels like hounds. I started down the short hallway but wheeled around after seeing what appeared to be a small purse hanging on a hook by the front door. Low-hanging fruit too easy to resist.

  It wasn’t a purse, but some sort of pouch or carrier. I fumbled with Velcro and straps, a task made more difficult by the dim light. The thing finally opened, I directed my flashlight inside. It was a monocular of some sort. I pulled it free, turned it in my hands. A reading aid? Many Cove residents had vision deficits and often carried personal aids such as electric magnifiers or lights, but Fairley’s eyes were eagle sharp. I read the body of the device and g
asped: it was a night-vision monocular, small enough to fit in a pocket. I repacked the device and hurried to Fairley’s bedroom.

  The door was shut. I hesitated—what if Fairley was on the other side, waiting with a syringe full of poison? I threw off my fear and went inside. The air was saturated with gardenia and jasmine—L’air du Temps, Fairley’s scent. I passed my flashlight over the bare walls, pockmarked with rectangles of faded lilac paint where pictures had recently hung.

  Like the rest of the house, Fairley’s bedroom was a study in Spartan necessity. Bed, dresser, one bedside table, a small desk. The dresser top was an expanse of shining wood that smelled of lemon Pledge, the bedside table held a lamp and nothing else, but the desk carried a pretty sweet computer setup—pretty impressive for a woman supposedly cowed by technology. I longed to crack the computer’s secrets, and briefly considered stealing the laptop, but the risk outweighed the gain. I left the computer and stepped into the master bathroom.

  Naturally it sparkled, not a whiff of murder or a trace of soap scum. Next was a walk-in closet almost as large as my current bedroom. Pin-neat clothes on wooden hangers, sensible shoes ready to slip into, and lots of neatly folded scarves. I muttered a curse under my breath. Murders begin in the past, but how could I unearth Fairley’s past in this empty tomb?

  A quick rummage through the dresser drawers yielded nothing but lingerie, although one drawer was dedicated to housekeeping detritus, things like electric bills, receipts, old income tax forms. I looked under the bed. The space underneath my bed is chock-a-block with flat storage boxes filled with those accumulations I’m not yet ready to discard. Perhaps Fairley did the same. I pulled back the snow-white quilt—nothing, not even a spider’s web.

  I was giving the room a final examination, about to cut my losses when I saw something lying on Fairley’s bedside table. It was an old black-and-white snapshot of a morbidly obese teenage girl and stern older man—father and daughter? I didn’t notice a resemblance, but there was a similarity in the way the two stared into the camera. There was something unsettling in those dead stares. I saw her, peeking out beneath the rolls of adipose tissue—the fat girl was Fairley Sable.

  No, that wasn’t quite right. The girl in the photograph was not Fairley Sable, at least not yet. But more important, who was the man? But now was not the time to ponder. I aimed my cell and captured the image. Perhaps Angie could unlock the picture’s meaning.

  I shut the bedroom door and hurried down the short hallway. I was almost in the living room when I heard a sharp thump. I watched in horror as the front door creaked open.

  Fairley Sable was home.

  * * *

  An eternity passed as that door groaned open. There had been no warning, no engine noise or clatter of the garage door opening. Fairley must have walked to Harvest Fest. So I had not been the only shadow slinking through Birnam Wood that evening.

  I had two choices, both bad. I could retrace my steps and hide in Fairley’s lair, trusting that later I’d be able to escape. Or I could just make a run for the back door and hope for the best. I decided to run—the time for hiding was over. I’d taken a deep breath and was about to begin my mad sprint when a male voice called for Mrs. Sable. I stepped back into the shadows. Fairley’s mysterious visitor was making enough noise to wake the dead. A dangerous trick on All Hallows’ Eve.

  “What are you doing, Jesse?” Fairley Sable cried out. Then a sharp thud as the front door slammed shut.

  Jesse Potts?

  More voices—Jesse’s hearty bellow and Fairley’s hiss—but I wasn’t going to stick around to listen. Jesse had given me an out and I grabbed it.

  I sprinted for the back. I unlatched the French door and bolted onto the patio. Then out in the cold, running over the manicured lawns of Mystic Cove like a rabbit with a coyote on its ass. Motion lights popped left and right, but I didn’t stop until I reached the sheltering darkness of Birnam Wood.

  I had escaped, but not entirely. Whatever knowledge my prowling had gained was offset by several unpleasant and dangerous facts. Fairley would see the unlocked doors and notice the faint but unmistakable signs of trespass. She would intuit both the intruder’s purpose and identity.

  Fairley Sable now knew that I knew. I had lifted the mask and found a murderer. A shiver traveled along my spine. Someone walking on my grave, Grammy would have said.

  But the one thing I didn’t know was this: what did Fairley plan to do about it?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Mad as a Hatter

  “How do you know all this?” Brad asked. We sat in a counter at a doughnut shop, a box of doughnuts between us. Outside a red dawn was breaking, but the highway already thrummed with traffic. I had just told Brad almost everything, but he still didn’t buy Fairley as a serial killer.

  “I’ve known for some time,” I said, dunking my doughnut. “I just didn’t know that I knew, but once I talked to Tally and Pete Santos, I had the motive. It all came together.”

  “You got any evidence that Fairley was stalking Mel?”

  An awkward question. I could have told him about the night-vision monocle I’d found in Fairley’s house, but then I’d have to tell Brad about breaking into Fairley’s home—that had been a close call. Sometimes it was better to be lucky than good and last night I’d been very lucky.

  Last night when I’d returned home, I’d called Jesse to get the story. I hadn’t fooled him with my bullshit about visiting Julie. Instead of returning to the guardhouse, Jesse had stashed the cart and followed me. From the shadows, he watched me commit my clumsy break-in, serving as sentinel while I was inside her lair. Then when Fairley had returned, he distracted her long enough so I could escape. “She’s a hunter, Brad. She tracked Mel and shot him down.”

  Brad sighed and rubbed his temples. “You’re putting me a tight spot here, but I do agree that Rand did not shoot Mel Dick’s corpse.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “I asked Rand if he was the one who deleted the files on Mel’s home computer. First he looked at me funny. Then he said he deleted the files on Mel’s home computer, same as he did to Mel’s office computer.”

  “A bald-faced lie, the person who tampered with Mel’s home computer took the entire hard drive.”

  “I confronted Rand with that fact, but he’s sticking to his story.”

  “But why? Like you said, Mel was dead when he was shot. Murder’s off the table—Tally doesn’t need his protection. You sure you don’t want one?” I asked, reaching for another doughnut.

  “I’m fine with this.” Brad pointed to his coffee. “I may have been wrong about that. Alan’s still protecting Tally. He knows that it will go a lot harder on Tally if it’s believed she attempted murder.”

  “Or maybe he’s told so many lies he doesn’t know which way is up.”

  “Eventually he’ll come clean, Addie.”

  “Not good enough.” I thumped the table, sending shivers through our coffees. “We need him to talk now. Rand can verify that Fairley warned him of my coming the night he held me hostage. I also believe she was instrumental in convincing him that Tally murdered Mel. He needs to talk and soon.” I was a little punchy. I hadn’t slept much last night. In my dreams Fairley’s true face kept appearing, the murderer’s face she hid from the rest of the world.

  “I still think your purported motive is pretty weak.”

  “I disagree. Mel Dick’s murder was a big mistake, a miscommunication. At his last birthday dinner Mel drank too much. Tally teased him, but Mel wasn’t in the mood. He knew who and what she was and he couldn’t keep quiet any longer. So he spouted his reckless threat, but Fairley, who was sitting next to Tally, was the one who heard it.”

  “Why would a smart guy like Mel clue Tally he’s on to her?”

  “Mel’s lips were loosened by vodka, but it wasn’t jus
t that. Keeping a secret is hard, even for people like Mel Dick. Secrets leak. They want to come out. When Tally teased Mel, he couldn’t keep silent any longer. Mel was human after all, and it cost him his life.”

  Brad set down his coffee and folded his arms on the table “Can you explain why Fairley believed Mel was talking to her when he was really threatening Tally? I got a problem with it, Addie.”

  This was my chance to seal the deal. If I could get Brad to buy motive, everything else would follow. “Unlike Tally, Fairley’s suspicions were already aroused before Mel’s birthday dinner.”

  “You mean when Mel fired her from the paper.”

  “She couldn’t figure why Mel had dumped her and it was driving her crazy. Given her OCD tendencies, she probably thought of little else. So she was primed and ready. When Mel said those reckless words at his birthday party, she put it together. Only she put it together wrong.”

  The shop was busy now. Sleep-eyed people trying to wake up with sugar and caffeine.

  I ate the last of my doughnut and sipped my coffee. “Tally buries her crimes deep inside, so deep that she believes herself innocent. Sure she was disturbed by Mel’s words, but she was able to rationalize them away, at least for a while. But Fairley keeps her murders close, just beneath the surface so she can play with them. And like so many killers, she’s a narcissist. Of course Fairley Sable thought Mel’s threat was directed at her. Who else could it be for?”

  Brad didn’t answer. I couldn’t tell if he was buying my theory, and I was nearly out of ammo. I slurped coffee, preparing for another round, when Brad leaned over the table.

  “All right then,” he said, “Tell me how Fairley killed Mel.”

  “The day after the fateful dinner party Fairley put her newly hatched plan to work. She assumed she had until November when Mel would expose her crime in the Commentator. The first order of business was to slap a GPS tracker on Mel’s golf cart so she could keep tabs on him. Then she started feeding Mel datura.”