“I thought I saw a person running away last night. The motion sensor lights on my porch went on, but because of the sheets of rain that fell, it was too dark to see anything much. Then I thought I heard a car start, but no headlights went on.”
“And you found the tracks of the car.”
“And a woman’s footprints.” I pointed. “They are too small to be a man’s. She wore flats without treads.”
“And you walked around, disturbing the scene.”
“Not really. I gave the scene a wide berth.”
“But this is the scene, Trixie. Didn’t you see the tape I put up around this area?”
I wisely kept my mouth shut.
He took out his cell phone and ordered a litany of cop stuff, from the crime scene van to cops who could make casts of car tracks and footprints.
“The rain last night might work in our favor. Then again, it might not. We’ll have to see what the cast guys can turn up.”
“Okay. Fine. I’ll tell Juanita and Cindy to get the coffee going.”
He sighed. “That’s not necessary. They won’t be here that long.”
“Okay.”
“And in the meantime, I’ll take your official statement at the office. I should have done it last night, since you found the body. That was my mistake, and I hope to rectify it as soon as possible. I’ll drive us both downtown.”
“I told you all about this last night.”
“I know, but I never expected you to duck under my crime scene tape and walk around here before I got the crime scene people back during the daylight.”
I groaned, thinking about watching him type. “I need to let Blondie out.”
“I’ll let her out. In fact, let’s take her with us. I haven’t seen her in a while.”
Shoot. It was hard to stay mad at someone who loved my dog as much as I did.
We walked toward the Big House, and I got Blondie’s leash and handed it to Ty. Ty and I had pretty much shared Blondie since she showed up at the back door of the diner one night along with a blizzard. She had been so wet and cold that ice had formed on her fur.
She was hungry and thirsty, and we took care of her. Finally Ty adopted her. Somehow Blondie then adopted me. Probably because she knew that I needed her.
That was okay with Ty, but he always found time to play with her and take her for walks.
“Let me freshen up,” I said.
“That’s fine. I’ll direct the crime scene people to the field in the meantime.”
I washed my face, ran a brush through my hair, put some makeup on, and added a spritz of gardenia perfume, my favorite scent. Maybe that would help detract from the circles under my eyes from being up all night.
Just as soon as I was ready, his big black SUV pulled up in front of the Big House. Blondie was in the backseat. I climbed up into the passenger side.
We drove for a while; then I had to ask before I burst like a Macy’s Thanksgiving balloon. “Would you please tell me something about the Burrows case?”
“He was shot.”
“Oh, really, Wyatt Earp? Like I couldn’t tell that?”
I waited for a couple of beats. “How about Claire Jacobson’s case?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Come on, Ty. I’m going to go bankrupt without cottage renters, and no one is going to want to look at all that crime scene tape and know that there was a murder there.”
“Didn’t you just ding me for being shallow when I said something like that?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Oops.
“We are working on both murders, but these things take time.”
“I don’t have a lot of time. There’re only two weeks before Memorial Day. That’s when the season officially begins. Throw me a bone, will you, please?”
“Okay, okay.” He took a deep breath. “We think that someone didn’t like what he was writing.”
“Oh, come on, Deputy. That’s totally obvious. Besides, his scrapbook and all his papers were gone.” I didn’t realize until this moment how much of the scene I’d observed while standing frozen in the cottage.
“Scrapbook? What scrapbook?”
“I saw it earlier, when I got the bus people away from him, but that’s another story.”
“I want to hear that story. Did you see what was in the scrapbook?”
“Not really. I was in the doorway looking in. I did see a lot of newspaper clippings, and they were really yellow. It was your typical old scrapbook with big beige construction paper pages.”
“That’s interesting, but what was he doing?”
“Writing. And he wanted peace and quiet and to be left alone.”
“Did you see that typewriter of his? What’s that about?” Ty asked.
“I saw him lug it into the cottage. It should be in a museum.”
“It ended up upside down on the floor. The murderer must have done that.”
I nodded. “When I peeked into the cottage earlier, I saw that he had a piece of paper hanging down from the roller. It was gone. Every piece of paper was gone.”
“If we could somehow discover what he was writing about, that might help us find who killed him since they seemed to have targeted it.”
“And since the evidence is gone, that’s going to be tough,” I supplied.
He nodded and made a left turn onto Main Street. The Sandy Harbor Sheriff’s Department was just ahead on the left. The construction of the building was like the library, all white and gleaming with two large pillars in the front.
It was an imposing building for only three sheriff’s deputies, so they put other county offices in it.
I’d been there before and loved how my footsteps clinked on the marble floors and how they echoed throughout the building.
Unfortunately, I had rubber soles on my shoes. Darn.
Ty’s footsteps would have to do. He wore cowboy boots, and the echo was divine.
He unlocked the door to his office, and I couldn’t procrastinate any longer.
“Ty, please let me type my statement as I speak. I don’t have the time or patience to watch you type with your two fingers and a thumb.”
“Hey, I’m pretty fast,” he said, in his slow Texas drawl.
“You stink. I haven’t got all day. I have to walk over to the Lure’s office and put in an ad for a bus person for the Silver Bullet.”
“A bus person?”
“To bus tables and run the dishwasher. Then they have to put the silver, glasses, and dishes away.”
“I’ve got the perfect kid in mind for you. Let me call him later, and you can interview him.”
“Great!” Well, this would solve one of my problems, but I still wanted to see if Joan had any more information from Hal.
“He’s had some difficulties, but he’ll be ideal once he learns the job. You just have to be patient with him, Trixie. You’d be perfect for him, also. So would the other ladies who work in the diner.”
“I’ll give anyone a chance. What’s his name?”
“Ray Meyerson. And his parents will be thrilled. Ray’s been getting into a little trouble lately—just petty stuff. Dad’s a farmer, and Ray just doesn’t cotton to it. Mom doesn’t work outside the home.”
I tried to set aside Ty’s sexy Texas accent and get to the heart of what I wanted to know. “What kind of petty stuff did he do?”
“He’s a juvenile and that information is not for public knowledge.”
“Ty!”
“Sorry. I’ll let him tell you himself if he wants to, but it was nothing assaultive or of a sexual nature.”
“Fine.”
Ty did let me type as I talked, and I went into detail about how I’d watched Mr. Burrows move into Eight and seen him carrying the ancient typewriter in.
Ty prompted me with questions.
Then I related the scenario about the bus people who thought that the article in the Lure and Cottage Eight were grand clues on their mystery tour. Then I typed officially what I’d noticed when I peeked into Mr. Burrows’s cottage.
Last was the part about me looking out my bathroom window and what I saw and didn’t see the night of his murder.
Finally we were done. I signed the affidavit and he signed as witness.
I took a deep breath and stretched.
The phone rang, and Ty reached for it. “Sandy Harbor Sheriff’s Department, Deputy Ty Brisco.”
So official. So cop-ish.
He reached for a yellow legal pad on his desk, and couldn’t quite get it from his standing position, since I hadn’t yet moved from his desk.
I handed it to him along with a pen.
“Uh-huh. Yep. I see.” He scribbled on the yellow paper. The pen didn’t work. I handed him another as if I were an ER nurse and he were the surgeon.
“Yeah. Um . . .” He wrote, and I didn’t move.
I knew he was noncommittal because I was there, and he was getting information about one of the cases.
Casually, I tried to look at his notes, but he moved the pad away from me.
Busted.
C’mon, Ty. Talk!
I stood and walked around the room, looking at the bulletin board—boring—but I had an ulterior motive in mind: I wanted to see the caller ID on the phone console, but I’d need binoculars.
Oh! A box of tissues. I leaned over and casually pulled out a tissue, throwing in a sniffle for good acting measure. Score! The call was from the New York State Police BCI—Bureau of Criminal Investigation—the major forensic folks in Albany, New York.
Ty raised a perfect black eyebrow. Okay, so he knew what I was doing with the tissue ploy.
I shrugged. My fingers were itching to slip that yellow legal pad out of his hand.
“Hang on a sec, Lieutenant. Just hang on.” Ty said, turning to me. “Trixie, would you mind waiting in the waiting room?”
“I don’t want to wait in the waiting room.”
He pointed to his handcuffs on his belt. “Go.”
Okay, I went to the waiting room and took a seat on a totally uncomfortable metal chair. Maybe I could eavesdrop.
The big tall ceilings and the marble floors and walls that I had loved so much before were an acoustical disaster. Ty was chirping away to the lieutenant from BCI, but I couldn’t make out a word.
I listened at the keyhole. There was probably some law against putting an ear, complete with fake gold earrings in the shape of slices of pizza, on an official keyhole of the Sandy Harbor Sheriff’s Department, but I did it anyway.
Yes, I stooped that low. All I could think of was Cottage Eight wrapped in yellow tape, and the tenants who would cancel when they found out about the recent murder there.
And then I thought of Claire and my promise to Burrows.
The mumbling stopped, and Ty finally hung up. I stood up and tried to get the circulation back in my numb butt.
The door opened and Ty walked out. I studied his face, but I couldn’t figure out anything.
This day was turning out to be a bust.
“Well?” I asked.
“Well what?”
Suddenly I was sick of playing games with him. I understood that there were some things that he had to keep confidential, but sooner or later, the small-town tongues would wag and I’d find out.
I just wanted to find out now and right from the source.
“Never mind. I’m tired of nagging you for information. I’ll hear it on the grapevine like everyone else. Let’s go. Take me home.”
I gave him the frozen treatment. I didn’t talk. I looked out the window of his SUV and watched the scenery go by.
Realizing that I couldn’t depend on Ty for information, I decided I’d have to make time to talk to my new friend, Joan Paris. Maybe Hal Manning talked to the BCI and did some pillow-talking with Joan.
I’d ask her to lunch. Regardless of the case, she needed a friend, and I liked her. I could show her around and introduce her to some of my new friends in the area. We could see if Antoinette Chloe Brown’s place was open yet. I could tell ACB that I served her mystery bus people and we could plan for the book club.
Or we could always go to the Crossroads Restaurant, Laura Tingsley’s place. Laura was the mayor’s wife, she was a gracious First Lady, and the restaurant was her White House.
I felt so helpless about these crimes, and I didn’t like that feeling.
There was one thing I could do . . . but it would probably be at least a misdemeanor, maybe even a felony if I got caught. And since Ty tended to pop up wherever I went, I might as well pack my toothbrush now for when Judge Cunningham of County Court sentenced me to the real Big House.
State prison or not, I was going to slip under the crime scene tape. I’d take it apart board by board if I had to, but I was going to find out if Cottage Eight held any secrets.
Chapter 6
By the time we turned off Main Street, the sky had darkened and the wind blew. Once we were out of downtown, the thunder rolled in and the lightning flashed, the wind picked up more and the rain hit. Just as we turned off the highway onto the no-name road that led to the diner, the rain was looking like Niagara Falls.
Lake Ontario was choppy. If this wind kept up, the waves were going to be three feet high.
I loved watching storms over the lake. The sky never looked the same twice, and right now it was an angry grayish purple.
I was definitely looking forward to snuggling under my favorite comforter and sitting on my porch and watching the storm.
But first, I had to make a run for it to the Big House.
Ty stopped his SUV to let me off. I wasn’t going to say anything to him, fully content in keeping the deep freeze going, but then I decided I was being juvenile.
“Thank you for the ride.” Icicles could hang from my every word.
“Thanks for all the typing, Trixie. It saved us both a ton of time.” He nodded in that sincere cowboy way he had, as if he were nodding for his bull to be let out of the chute.
“No problem.”
“What are you going to do now?” he asked.
“Watch the storm from my porch. Maybe I’ll even fall asleep.”
He said something, but the rumble of thunder drowned out his words.
“What?” I asked. “I couldn’t hear you.”
“I said that it sounds great. If I bring the coffee, can I join you?”
It was hard to say no when he asked so sweetly and volunteered to bring coffee, which he’d just get from the Silver Bullet anyway.
He obviously didn’t get my frozen message.
Maybe I had to be even more blunt.
“For Pete’s sake, Ty, I’m freaking mad at you.”
“Because I won’t spill everything to you about the investigations?”
This man was an investigator? A deputy sheriff? Someone, quick, buy him a clue!
“I don’t want to read about things that concern me in the Sandy Harbor Lure! I’m not asking for all the confidential details . . . just a couple of them so I can get my business going again.”
“I’ll get us some coffee and a couple of donuts, and we’ll talk.”
I looked at him suspiciously. “Really? We’ll talk?”
“What I can tell you, I’ll tell you. But it isn’t going to be much.”
“Hurry up, then, Ty.”
He left to go up to the diner. I got a couple of comforters and headed out to the back porch, or should I call it the front porch because it faced the water and had a separate entrance?
Anyway, it had a fabulous view of Lake Ontario and the waves that were now rolling in. The rain rapped on the roof and the brick pavers that led to the back
. . . er . . . front porch. The air smelled wet and earthy with a touch of fish or maybe it was a touch of worms.
The flag flying from the pole in the middle of the lawn was whipping in the wind. The purple gazing ball, in the middle of a raised garden where I’d just planted petunias and marigolds, looked like a shiny golf ball on a tee. In this wind, it could soar off any second for a par.
I got comfortable in my Adirondack chair and tucked the comforter around me. Taking several deep breaths, I closed my eyes and meditated, my breath keeping time with the waves.
I don’t know how long I drifted off, but when I awoke there was a large covered take-out cup on the end table next to me, along with a white bag containing my donuts.
Ty wasn’t there.
I took a sip of coffee. It was ice-cold. How long was I out? So much for our talk.
Gathering up my comforter, I somehow got myself out of the Adirondack chair and stood on the porch for a while to get my thirtysomething bones time to lock into place.
I looked at Cottage Eight for a while, then looked up at Ty’s apartment above the bait shop. I couldn’t see him in the expansive windows that he liked to look out from or his porch that jutted out onto the lakeside.
Maybe he went back to work.
That meant it was time for me to break into Cottage Eight.
I went inside, microwaved the coffee to heat it, and took a couple of sips. Nice. I peeked at the donuts—chocolate with cream filling. Perfect.
I took another sip and reluctantly set the coffee down to drink later. I didn’t want to take it with me and spill coffee on the crime scene.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my answering machine blinking. I hadn’t checked it for a while, so I hit the button even though I expected it wouldn’t be good news.
It wasn’t.
Two messages, two cancellations. Cottage Ten and Cottage Three. They knew about Mr. Burrows’s murder. One man “didn’t want to expose his children to that kind of thing” and another, a woman, said that she was scared of the restless ghosts of murder victims.
This was just what I was afraid of. Well, I wasn’t afraid of restless ghosts, but I was afraid of more cancellations.
Time for me to spring into action.
A Second Helping of Murder Page 6
