Dolled Up for Murder

by Jane K. Cleland

  * * *

  Cara arrived about quarter to eight, more than an hour earlier than her regular start time, a platter of gingersnaps in hand.

  “I wanted to be here when Eric arrived,” she said, smiling.

  Eric’s start time was eight.

  “Me, too,” I said.

  So, it seemed, did everyone, even Fred. Gretchen and Sasha arrived about five of eight, followed closely by Fred.

  “Wow!” I exclaimed in mock amazement. “Look what the wind blew in!”

  “Getting ready for bed, Fred?” Gretchen asked, giggling.

  “Just because none of you has ever seen me up and about this early before doesn’t mean it can’t be true.”

  I smiled broadly. “You seem so … I don’t know … what’s the word … oh, I know! Awake.”

  “That part’s an illusion,” Fred said. “All you can say for sure is that I’m vertical.”

  Gretchen giggled again and said, “I’m going to get Hank. He wouldn’t want to miss seeing Eric.”

  She pushed into the warehouse as Fred said, “So what do you say, Cara? Can I try one of the new batch?”

  “Not until Eric has some.”

  “You’re being unreasonably cruel to a vulnerable man!” he said.

  “I know,” she said, smiling. “It bothers me a lot.”

  “Did you find anything worthy of remark at Alice’s?” I asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “No. It’s all nice enough stuff, but nothing special.”

  Gretchen returned with a sleepy-eyed Hank in tow, cradling him like a baby. His head rested on her shoulder. One paw was wrapped around her upper arm.

  “PTK,” I said, reaching for him, using Prescott’s shorthand for “Pass the kitty.” She handed him over, and I gave him a little hug and kissed the top of his head. “Good boy, Hank.”

  Eric walked in, setting the chimes jangling.

  “Yay!” I said.

  Gretchen shouted, “Yay!” and her arms shot up, forming a wide V. She began her happy dance, a high-energy performance filled with high jumps, low kicks, sideswiping hand motions, and bouncing spins, circling him and saying “Yippee!” over and over again.

  Eric looked the same. His color was good, his eyes were bright, and his demeanor was as reserved as ever. He looked pleased and embarrassed and awkward all at once. I plunked down at the guest table, Hank still in my arms, and rubbed his little tufty ears as I watched the fun.

  Eric told us he was fine, really, fine as he ate half a dozen cookies in quick succession and drank about a quart of sweet iced tea.

  As the excitement began to fade, I stood up, placed Hank on the floor, and said, “All right, everyone. Let’s give Eric some breathing room.”

  Eric looked troubled as he leaned over and gave Hank a pat. “Do you have a minute?” he asked me.

  “Sure,” I said, hoping nothing was wrong. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  * * *

  Eric perched on about an inch of the wing chair, staring at the carpet. After several seconds’ silence he raised his eyes to mine.

  “Chief Hunter told me about what you did,” he said. “I wanted to say … I mean … well … thank you.”

  “I did what anyone would do, Eric.”

  “You think?” He stood up, looking uncomfortable. “Anyway, thanks.”

  I nodded and let him go, which he did without saying another word.

  * * *

  Wes’s online article was perfect. The headline read:

  ALICE MICHAELS’S DIARY: WILL IT BE FOUND TODAY?

  The text used my quotes along with one from an unnamed police source whom I suspected was Ellis, stating that the police had the utmost confidence in Prescott’s abilities. Nice, I thought.

  * * *

  I drove along Greenview Street, a two-lane road that ran parallel to Ocean Avenue, one block inland from Alice Michaels’s house.

  When Ellis had told me to stay clear, not to go anywhere near the stakeout, he’d spoken in as dictatorial a tone of voice as I’d ever heard him use. I understood his point of view. If the trap we’d set sprang as we hoped, we’d have a killer cornered. I didn’t want to interfere, and I wasn’t foolhardy, but I hated half a story, and I was committed to staying out of their way. I remembered how Wes said he wasn’t surprised to see me wherever there was action. Curiosity was a powerful motivator.

  I passed a bungalow on the right, closed for the season. Shutters covered the windows, and tarps were tethered to the porch railing to protect the outdoor furniture. A couple of rocks had fallen from the stone wall and sat on the crabgrass curb, a sign the owners or their gardener hadn’t yet made their annual spring walk-around. Memorial Day weekend was Rocky Point’s unofficial start of summer, and most part-time residents didn’t drive up from the city to ready their houses for the season much before then. An old Chevy sat in the driveway, pointing toward the street. To my left, a half acre or so of scrub oak, sycamore, and pine blocked the ocean view, accounting for the bungalow’s second-story porch. From there, the vista would be unobstructed.

  I turned right onto Astor Road, heading away from the beach. Through the rearview mirror, I spotted Officer Meade in an unmarked vehicle closer to Ocean than Greenview, her vehicle pointing inland. Detective Brownley, in another unmarked car, faced the dunes. I turned right on Marlow, one block inland from Greenview, saw no signs of human life, and turned right again, on Raleigh Way. The police officer I thought was named Daryl sat in his unmarked vehicle a hundred yards from Ocean, also facing the beach. I suspected that Ellis, along with at least one additional officer, would be inside Alice’s house, lying in wait.

  I turned into a driveway across from an unmarked, private lane, closer to an alley than a road, that ran between Astor and Raleigh, halfway between Ocean and Greenview. The alley served the half-dozen houses that backed onto it, allowing trash to stay out of sight and deliveries to be more convenient. Griff stood partly hidden by an old maple tree, facing Astor. There were no vehicles parked in the alley, unless you counted an old red wheelbarrow sticking out from behind a wood-enclosed trash bin. I wondered why Ellis hadn’t stationed a vehicle here, but only for a moment. The answer was obvious: From the lane, there was nowhere to go except Astor or Raleigh—and he had those streets covered. You could hide in the woods, but not well and not for long. A half acre sounds like a lot of land, but it isn’t, not when you’re trying to hide.

  I backed out, headed up Raleigh away from the beach, driving two blocks past Greenview, and parked next to a weathered wooden fence. I walked back along Raleigh, then turned onto Greenview for ten paces, glanced around to check that no one was watching, and entered the patch of woods that ran from Greenview to the alley. I was twenty paces in, walking on a thick carpet of pine needles, before I realized that out of habit, I had taken my tote bag with me. I shrugged and continued on. My steps made a soft shush-shush sound. After several minutes, I reached the lane where Griff was stationed. I peeked to my right, waited until his back was to me, then ran on tiptoes across the lane. I was into the section of woods abutting Ocean Avenue in less than thirty seconds. I ducked under low-hanging branches and pushed through clumps of bushes and ferns until finally I glimpsed slivers of asphalt and dune. After another minute I saw a shimmer of water. I stopped five feet back of the stone wall that ran the breadth of the woods along Ocean Avenue and looked around.

  I saw no one on the street or beach, and I doubted that anyone passing by could see me, but looking diagonally to my right, I had a clear view of Alice’s driveway and her woods. If I looked up, I could see her chimneys. The bits of ocean I could see were as choppy as yesterday, but the sun was out. It was warmer than yesterday, too, a comfortable sixty-eight. Not far from where I stood, poison ivy grew amid a thick knot of Boston ferns, and I stepped a little further into the woods, knowing poison ivy was as common a ground cover in New Hampshire as grass was on a golf course.

  I waited and watched and listened. Waves crashed against the roc
ky shore, then quieted as the tide drew back, only to charge forward and crash again, a rhythmic, deceptively peaceful song. A large brown bird circled overhead, gave a high-pitched craw-craw, then disappeared heading west. As the minutes passed, I began to feel as if I were the only person on earth, an eerie sensation. I dug my phone out of my bag to check the time. Before I could look, the silence was shattered by Ellis’s call of “Stop! Police. Stop!”

  A tall, thin blond man wearing a Padres baseball cap and wraparound sunglasses sprinted across Ocean Avenue straight at the stone wall, straight at me. Instinctively, I stepped back, tripping on a root and toppling sideways, landing hard. As I stretched out my arm to break my fall, my phone crashed to the ground and my tote bag slid off my shoulder, the contents spilling onto the pine needles. The man leapt over the wall like a gymnast vaulting a horse fifty feet away from where I lay in a heap, then pushed into the forest as if there were a pathway only he could see. Seconds later, he was out of sight, lost in the northern jungle. It could be Lenny, I thought. Or Randall. I stood up, rattled, but unhurt, in time to see Detective Brownley race by heading the wrong way, driving north on Ocean. If I didn’t do something, he was going to escape.

  I dashed to the wall, jumped up and over it, and ran into the middle of the street, heading toward Alice’s house, certain that Officer Meade or Ellis would soon be in pursuit. Moments later, Officer Meade barreled onto Ocean from Astor. I waved my arms like a windmill, and she slammed on her brakes.

  “You’re heading the wrong way!” I yelled, running toward her. “He ran through the woods toward the alley, and probably to Greenview beyond.”

  She nodded and took off, whip-turning onto Raleigh. After standing in the street for another few seconds, waiting to see if Ellis or someone else was going to drive by, I ran back into the woods, found my phone amid the jumble of my possessions half buried under pine needles, and started off toward the alley, jogging fast, trying to make up time. I ducked and wove and stumbled through the forest, heading more or less straight, until an unseen branch scratched my cheek, drawing blood, and I froze for a second, crying out in pain and covering the wound with my palm.

  “Go,” I said aloud and took off again.

  Moments later, the trash enclosure and wheelbarrow came into view. Griff was nowhere to be seen. I ran across the alley and entered the next section of woods. When I reached Greenview, I was nearly out of breath. I looked every which way and spotted the man in the Padres baseball cap. He was behind the wheel of the Chevy I’d seen in the bungalow’s driveway, pulling out. In five seconds, he’d be gone. I called Ellis and got him.

  “The man you’re looking for is in a Chevy,” I said, my chest heaving, “just about to pull out of a driveway on Greenview, near Astor.”

  “Stay where you are,” he snapped and hung up.

  Ellis’s SUV spun onto Greenview from Astor, heading south, which meant the Chevy was behind him. Officer Meade’s vehicle, followed closely by Daryl’s, with Griff in the passenger seat, came flying by, sandwiching the Chevy between police vehicles.

  The Chevy’s driver, accelerating fast, veered left, trying to pass Ellis, but Ellis wouldn’t let him. Ellis kept to the center of the road, swerving to keep the Chevy trapped in place. Ellis anticipated the Chevy’s driver’s moves as if they’d been choreographed and rehearsed, pulling left just as the Chevy did, then right, until, without warning, the Chevy’s driver seemed to lose control and the car careened toward a stone wall on the right side of the street. Before it reached the wall, it jumped the curb and crashed into a tree, an old elm.

  Still breathing hard, I ran full tilt toward the crash scene. Detective Brownley whizzed past. Ellis, his weapon out and pointed at the driver, sidestepped toward the vehicle. Even from this distance, I could see through the rear window, and what I saw told me that Ellis wasn’t in danger—the driver was dead. He’d fallen against the steering wheel, his head resting on his shoulder at an impossible angle.

  All at once, I ran out of breath and slowed to a walk. I was trembling from exertion and anxiety and fear. I stopped walking and bent over, placing my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. I heard Officer Meade call for an ambulance. As I stared at my bloody hand, the one that had touched the cut on my cheek, an unexpected thought came to me: Con men succeed because they’re able to convince you that the alternate reality they create is genuine. If two people tell contradictory stories, either one of them is mistaken or one of them is lying. Ian hadn’t sounded despondent when I’d spoken to him that morning. He’d sounded angry. I was willing to bet that when Penn had reported that Ian had sounded despondent, he’d been flat-out lying.

  “It’s Penn,” I said aloud, standing up, my eyes on the man in the car. Ellis, standing by the driver’s door, and the others, standing nearby, turned to look at me.

  I took a step closer, then another. I kept walking until I reached Ellis. Penn’s dark glasses were askew, and his eyes stared unseeing at a place about a foot to my left. His wig, or perhaps his own hair dyed with a rinse-out blond wash, was natural looking. His baseball cap lay on the passenger-side floor. I heard sirens approaching. The ambulance, I assumed.

  “Step away, Josie,” Ellis said.

  “Why?” I asked Penn, knowing he couldn’t answer. “Just for money?”

  “Now, Josie.”

  I did as he said, crossing the street to the sidewalk.

  Ellis opened the driver’s door and leaned in. He looked at the man, then the car’s interior. After a moment, he backed out and popped the trunk. Griff and Officer Meade aimed their weapons into the space and, standing off to the side, took a long, measuring look inside. Satisfied, Griff closed it, then squatted at the rear, trying, I guessed, to read the tag number through the mud.

  Ellis walked over to where I stood.

  “Tell me what happened,” Ellis said. “From the beginning.”

  I recounted what I’d heard and done and seen from the minute I’d driven up to when I’d run down Greenview, and he listened without interrupting.

  “You could have been hurt, Josie,” Ellis said, “or worse.”

  “I stayed out of sight. Penn never knew I was there.”

  He shook his head. “I worry about you.”

  I met his eyes and saw concern. “Thank you, Ellis.”

  “How did you know it was Penn? Why didn’t you—” He stopped himself and raised a palm, like a traffic cop. “Don’t tell me now. You’ll just have to repeat it at the station anyway.”

  “Can I take a shower first?” I asked. “I fell in poison ivy.”

  “Sure.”

  After promising to present myself at the police station in an hour, I traipsed back to the woods to gather up my wallet and keys and everything else that had fallen out of my bag when I’d tripped, then drove myself home to shower and change.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  As I stood under the steaming water I thought about lies and liars and what I knew for sure and what I only thought was true. I knew Penn fit the profile I’d developed. He was both a risk taker and methodical, a man who’d cross an ocean in a hot air balloon. He was an athlete, an iron man, well able to run and vault. Through his investigative reporting, he had access to fake IDs and stolen weapons. It wasn’t a stretch to think he knew how subtle changes in a person’s appearance were a more effective disguise than over-the-top modifications. Or that he’d don a clown’s wig if he thought that would serve his purpose, perhaps to let his victim know there was no point in trying to identify him, that he was disguised. He couldn’t travel far to sell the federal currency, because of his regularly scheduled on-air live performances. What I didn’t know was why a man of his prestige would lie and cheat and kidnap and kill. I knew the questions and, standing under the stream of hot water, staring at nothing, I knew where I’d find the answers—Alice’s diary. Except that I didn’t have a clue where it was.

  * * *

  It was nearly three by the time I got back to work after spending more tha
n an hour giving my statement. Wes had called twice, e-mailed once, and texted three times. I wasn’t ready to talk to him, not yet. I needed time to process all that had happened, to think. I was stunned that Penn had so completely snowed me. I hadn’t known him well, but still, I felt snookered. I was also furious. How dare he kidnap Eric? How could he kill his friend, Alice? How could he kill Ian? None of it made sense. Ty had called, too, to let me know he was home and worried about me.

  “Whoa,” Fred said, standing up as I entered. “It’s sure good to see you. We heard about the chase and crash and that you were somehow involved.”

  “We were so worried,” Gretchen said, her lustrous green eyes dimming at the thought of danger.

  “Are you all right?” Cara asked.

  Sasha leaned forward, looking anxious, listening.

  I smiled, touched by their worry. “I’m fine. Thank you all.” I explained that I didn’t want to talk about anything and that they should just carry on.

  “I’ll call Eric,” Cara said. “He asked me to let him know as soon as we heard from you.”

  “All right,” I said.

  I walked around my business, catching up with what was going on, the normalcy of my workplace a relaxing counterpoint to the horror I’d just witnessed. I found Eric in the tag sale venue directing the temps on how to display a collection of clocks. He greeted me with such fervor, I understood how upset he’d been. When I got to Hank’s area, he was eating. Back in the front office, Gretchen was on the phone with someone about cleaning the carpet in the auction room. Cara was on another line, giving someone directions from Portland, Maine. Fred and Sasha were reading on their computer monitors. Upstairs, I called Ty.

  “You’re home,” I said.

  “Home and glad to hear from you. The news reports were daunting.”

  “The experience was daunting.”

  “Are you all right?” he asked.