A Star-Spangled Murder

by Valerie Wolzien

  The deputy sheriff was looking closely at the body, and the words caused her to start. She stared at Kathleen and then Susan. “Can’t say I have any idea. I was just trying to get her out of here.… Halsey’s pretty smart. Just hope she’s smart enough to shut up about this.” She looked hard at what was left of Humphrey Taylor. “This was one of the stupidest men I’d ever met, but I never thought he was stupid enough to get himself killed.” She looked up at Susan and Kathleen. “I don’t like it! Not on my island,” she announced loudly, and headed for the phone.

  Kathleen picked up a slightly moth-eaten Hudson Bay blanket, draped it over the body, and then joined Susan by the window. “Something interesting?” she asked casually.

  Susan glanced over her shoulder, making sure that they were alone. “Maybe,” she answered briefly, and nodded her head at the glass.

  Kathleen peered out the window, across the weathered gray porch, down the strip of lawn between tall white pines, and to the cove. The tide was almost out, and much of the estuary’s bottom revealed. Mussels, clam flats, tiny immature crabs running between rocks and shells, were attracting flocks of gulls. A large blue heron picked its way across a bar of plants and boulders. Pieces of beach glass gleamed where the sun struck, and huge mounds of rugosa roses dropped pink and white petals at the water’s edge. Kathleen seemed confused. “I don’t …” she began.

  “Over there. By that large pink boulder next to the stand of birch,” Susan directed. “She’s crouching down, but you can just make out the green anorak and her hair. Do you see her?”

  “No, I … Yes!”

  “Shhh.” Susan dampened her enthusiasm. “We may not want Janet to know this just yet,” she whispered.

  “Why on earth not?” Kathleen answered.

  “Shhh! Because we certainly don’t want that child accused of anything, do we?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That’s the Taylor girl—the one who ran from the restaurant last night.”

  “So?”

  Kathleen seemed to be awfully dense today, but Susan persisted. “We don’t want her to be accused of a murder that she didn’t commit, do we?”

  “Wait a second. We don’t know that she’s involved in this, we—”

  “We can assume it,” Susan insisted. “Why else would she be over there watching the house through binoculars?”

  Kathleen opened her mouth to answer and then closed it again.

  “Unless there’s a rare bird nesting on our roof, that girl is watching us. And why would she be watching the house if she didn’t know about him?” Susan nodded back over her shoulder.

  “Okay, maybe. But how do you know that she isn’t just interested in what’s going on here for some reason of her own that has nothing to do with this? Teenagers aren’t the most logical of people, you know. Remember when Chad became obsessed with that French exchange student and he started following her around? He must have been twelve or thirteen then.”

  “And this is just a coincidence?” Susan glanced back at the wool lump in the middle of her living room.

  “Probably not, but possibly. And, if it’s not, she might have killed him—or know the identity of the person who did,” Kathleen added quickly. “And she could be in some sort of trouble, some sort of danger. I don’t think we should just stand here and ignore her interest in all this. I really don’t.”

  Susan thought it over. “Okay,” she agreed. “I’ll go talk to her.” And, startling Kathleen, she opened the door and left the house, heading straight down to the water.

  “Are you crazy?” Kathleen called out.

  “Excuse me?” The deputy was standing in the doorway, phone still at her ear.

  “Uh … Mrs. Henshaw got upset and just ran out of here,” Kathleen explained lamely, hoping the woman had too much on her mind to worry about an erratic housewife.

  “Murder is pretty upsetting, but that body shouldn’t be left alone, and I’ve got to go to my car, and the ambulance is supposed to arrive.… Would it bother you to stay here with it … him?”

  “Not at all. I was a policewoman before I got married,” Kathleen explained.

  Janet Shapiro chuckled grimly. “Then you probably know more about all this than me. A whole lot more.

  “I’ll leave you then,” she continued, starting toward the door. “And when Mrs. Henshaw comes back, you might ask her to stay, too, but I don’t think that girl should come in here. Yes, the Taylor girl,” she continued, seeing Kathleen’s surprised look. “I noticed her out in the cove as I drove up. Whatever she has to do with this can wait. She’ll be around for a while.”

  “There’s not necessarily any reason to think that she has anything to do with the murder,” Kathleen said.

  “Really?” Aunt Janet was skeptical. “Well, you may know more than I do, but from what I hear about that family, there’s more than one reason to connect her with this murder. Which is good reason to keep her away for a while, seems to me.”

  And with this statement, Kathleen found herself alone with a dead man.

  Susan walked across the cove, wishing she had taken the time to put on rubber boots. Glutinous black mud oozed into the new Keds that she had dared not take off for fear of cutting her feet on the shells. She slopped through water to her ankles, too intent on her mission to notice the brine shrimp fleeing. She was watching for the girl, who had ducked out of sight when Susan left her porch. The birch trees wouldn’t afford much protection, but certainly the child could take off and run through them and vanish before Susan had squished across to the other shore. She slogged on, determined to accomplish her mission even if she had to run through the woods wearing a few pounds of mud on each foot. But that turned out to be unnecessary. As quickly as the girl had fled from the restaurant the night before, she popped out from behind the rock and then disappeared. But from the wave the girl gave her, Susan felt she could safely assume that her presence was desired.

  “Hi!” she called out. “I’ll be there in a minute.” Surprisingly, the child’s only response to this was to point back across the cove, wave wildly, and vanish behind the rock.

  Susan, glancing over her shoulder, saw the only ambulance on the island (which had been used to haul wounded whales, dolphins, and a pet seal as well as the island’s ill) skid to a stop in the crushed pine needles that lined her driveway. She dashed around the rock and dropped to the ground next to the child. “Hi,” she said again, after a few minutes of hoping she wouldn’t have to be the one to break the silence. Apparently her hopes were not to be fulfilled. “You’re one of the Taylor girls, aren’t you?” she added.

  “Titania,” came the one-word explanation.

  “I’m Susan Henshaw. It’s nice to meet you,” Susan said, trying to remember exactly what the literary reference was.

  Titania almost, but not quite, bent her pale pink lips into a smile. “It’s nice to meet you, too.” Her voice surprised Susan with its warmth. “When you have a name like mine, you can tell about people right away: those that are happy to meet you and those that want to prove that they’re literary, that they’ve read Midsummer Night’s Dream—they always say something stupid like ‘Oh, are you queen of the fairies?’ Do I look like the queen of any fairies?”

  Susan smiled. She looked like a very healthy, athletic thirteen-year-old American girl. There was nothing nebulous or exotic about this Titania. Susan decided not to admit that she had had trouble identifying her name. “I thought you wanted to see me,” was all she said.

  “I guess …” Titania’s assurance appeared to melt. “There’s a body in your living room,” she said flatly as if it had nothing to do with her, as if there were no way she could be interested or involved.

  “Your father’s body …”

  “My stepfather’s body!” Titania surprised Susan with her vehemence. “Don’t call that man my father! I hated him! We all hated him!” The announcement ended in hysterical tears.

  Susan waited quietly, giving Titania a ch
ance to express some of her grief and misery. The crying was such a combination of tears, moans, and angry sobs that Susan hurt just listening to it. “Maybe,” she started gently when the crying had slowed down, “this isn’t a very good time for you to say things like that.”

  There were still tears in Titania’s eyes, but also a look of comprehension. “Because he’s dead and we don’t know who murdered him yet, right?”

  “Right.”

  Titania grimaced. “I guess I just told you that I’ve been in your house, haven’t I?”

  “And that you saw your stepfather’s body, but that’s really all I know. You weren’t at the house this morning, were you?”

  “No. I was yesterday evening, though—I found him yesterday,” she admitted.

  “Did you touch him? Did he seem stiff or anything?” Susan asked as gently as she could.

  “He … he didn’t seem stiff, I guess.… But you’re wondering how long he’s been dead, aren’t you? I know a little about that. I read a lot of Agatha Christie last winter.”

  “Yes, but we can find that out other ways. He might have been seen on the island recently or something.” Or he might have been lying dead in my living room for over a week, Susan thought. But Titania’s next words denied that possibility.

  “He wasn’t there the day before yesterday. I guess,” she continued, seeing the look of surprise on Susan’s face, “I should explain.”

  “You probably should,” Susan agreed when the child paused.

  Titania took a deep breath and began. “Things have been a little stressed out at my house this summer. Family problems and things … Oh, you’re going to hear all about it. Everyone on this damn island seems to know about it,” she continued more loudly. “My mother and my father got divorced last summer, which was lousy but livable. You know?”

  Susan nodded. She did know. Lousy but livable was a good description of a lot of things.

  “Well, we were kind of adjusting to it. Living with my mom but seeing Dad on weekends and all. And then we had this big party on New Year’s Eve. My sisters and I even talked my mom into inviting Dad. Everyone was allowed to stay up till midnight as some big special treat, which it was for my little sisters, but I’m thirteen, for heaven’s sake. There are kids in my class who’ve been to Times Square to watch the ball drop!”

  Susan nodded again and took a moment to wonder why there were always parents who let their children do just about anything, and why her children were always holding those people up as sterling examples of parenthood. But she had to pay attention.

  “So at the stroke of midnight my mother gets up and insists that everyone fill their glasses with champagne—even my littlest sister, and she was eight years old at the time—and that we congratulate her.” She gulped, and Susan could see she was again near tears. “Well, my father was there, filling glasses with this fixed smile on his face, and my uncle was standing next to my mother—and she explains that she’s getting married again—to Uncle Humphrey. I couldn’t believe it. No one could believe it. I thought I was going to be sick. And Theresa was, but she doesn’t have much self-control.…” Another gulp. “We … my sisters and I … we didn’t know what to do. No one did. Some of the neighbors who had been invited even laughed—as though it was a joke, you know? I mean, they couldn’t really believe it!

  “But it wasn’t a joke. They got married, and less than a week later, they were on their honeymoon in Antigua. They even had the nerve to invite us to go along!”

  “You and your sisters?”

  “Exactly. My little sister even wanted to go because of the sun and swimming and everything, but I thought it was a disgusting idea, and in the end, we stayed home with my father—my real father.”

  Susan wondered just how much of that decision had been mutual. And how welcome they had been in the home of their father.

  It was almost as though Titania could read her thoughts. “My father loves having us,” she insisted rather vehemently. “He always says that we are welcome there any time at all! And my father doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean!”

  “Sometimes adults can’t always live up to the things that they say,” Susan answered. “You were explaining why you’ve been inside my house,” she reminded her.

  Titania scowled but apparently thought she might as well continue—which she did, slowly. “We’ve been up here for months, and it’s been awful! My father had the house built for the family. He planned it for years and then he had a windfall last spring, and the first thing he did was hire an excavation company to start digging the foundation of the house. We were really looking forward to spending the summer up here. And then it went to my mother in the divorce settlement! My father’s never even spent one single night in his dream home—he stays at an inn on the other side of the island! Think how sad that must make him feel! I’m sure it’s been hell! Absolute hell!”

  “And it’s been difficult for you, too,” Susan suggested.

  “Yes!” Titania seemed to think the older woman was extraordinarily perceptive. “And that’s why I’ve had to get away sometimes—to your house,” she added a bit hesitantly.

  “How did you get in?”

  “Oh, that was easy!” Titania started out enthusiastically until she saw the look on Susan’s face. “I was just walking around back over Memorial Day weekend when we were up here to … to christen the new house, as my mother called it—with champagne and lobsters—and I noticed then that there was a shutter off on one of the second-floor windows, so I climbed up that pine tree next to the porch roof on the back, and then I went around to the front—to put the shutter back up—when I realized that the window was unlocked and I could open it by just poking a stick under the sill and prying it up, and … and I got in,” she finished, plainly embarrassed at her breaking-and-entering stunt.

  “You must have been desperate for some privacy,” was Susan’s only comment.

  “You understand.” Titania’s words were accompanied by a sigh of relief. “I …” Titania looked over Susan’s shoulder and gasped. “They’re coming.… My sisters,” she explained. “They don’t know about this. Please don’t tell them. Please!”

  The three girls could only be sisters. Three heads of auburn hair were cut into three identical little caps which topped a trio of turned-up noses, six widely spaced hazel eyes, and fair skin sprinkled with innumerable freckles. They all wore jeans and faded T-shirts, the uniform of the Maine coast.

  “Titania, where have you been?” demanded the smallest of the group. “We’ve been waiting and waiting, and when you didn’t show up, we wanted to come and get you, but you said we should wait, and I told Theresa that we should do what you said, but she said—”

  “I can talk for myself, stupid!” These words were accompanied by a quick jab in the speaker’s ribs. The middle-sized girl didn’t bother to hide her anger.

  “Hey! That hurt! Titania …” The young girl looked to her oldest sister for protection.

  “Stop it, you two,” Titania insisted. “You’re here and Mrs. Henshaw is here, and that’s all that matters right now.” She stressed her words by widening her eyes and staring intently.

  Susan was wondering just what unspoken message she was trying to communicate when Titania turned to her. “My sisters,” she said slowly, “are looking forward to seeing the inside of your house. We’ve been admiring the outside for months now.”

  Susan opened her mouth and then shut it without speaking. So only Titania knew of their stepfather’s death! “I … I’d be happy to have you all over in a few days—as soon as we’ve settled in,” she stammered, agreeing with Titania that this wasn’t the time or the place for them to hear the news. “We just arrived last night, you know,” she added, making an effort to sound normal.

  “Yes. We saw you in the restaurant,” the smallest sister agreed, opening her eyes wide and grinning.

  “And you probably noticed us—or at least Titania—when she decided to make a dash for it,” the middle girl ad
ded, frowning at her older sister.

  “Everyone saw Titania!” the youngest girl agreed, grinning at the memory.

  “We have to get back to Mommy now,” the middle sister continued. “No one else seems to be around,” she added, gazing intently at Titania.

  Susan thought the number of significant looks flying around was possibly a record for the island.

  “And thank goodness,” the middle girl added. “I thought I would go crazy if Uncle Humphrey found us. He would have made us go on another of those nature walks. Just the other day, he was talking about hunting sea urchins. Can you believe that?”

  “I’d like to see some sea urchins,” the smallest child admitted.

  “Tierney! How can you say that?”

  “I said I wanted to see sea urchins! I didn’t say I wanted to see them with him, did I? Titania, where have you been? Theresa has been picking on me all day long!”

  “All day? We haven’t even had breakfast yet, and Mom is going to be really mad if we don’t get home in time for it, Miss Stinky Pants!”

  “Don’t call me that! No one but Daddy can call me that! No one!” Tierney stuck her face a few inches from her sister’s and screamed out the words.

  Susan was a mother. She couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. On the other hand, she wasn’t their mother, and she might learn something that related to the murder. She resisted the urge to interfere. Except that …

  “Stop this right now!” Titania’s orders solved the problem. Both girls jumped back, and Theresa had the grace to look embarrassed.

  Tierney wasn’t so sophisticated. “I don’t understand,” she protested. “I thought we were going to go ahead with the plan.” The statement earned her the wrath of both sisters, who glared identically. “Well,” she continued with a tired whine, “that’s what you two have been saying—that no matter what happens, we have to go on with the plan, that we can’t stop till Daddy is back where he belongs.…”