Death and Honesty

by Cynthia Riggs

  “I’m starving for a rare steak,” said Ocypete.

  “You’re to eat a bland diet for the next week, no rare steak, no hot salsa. Sorry.” Hope tucked her pen into the holder on the top of her clipboard and left.

  “Morning, Gram.” Elizabeth greeted Victoria before she poured herself a cup of coffee.

  “You heard what happened yesterday?” asked Victoria.

  “How Delilah brained her husband and Oliver tried to finish him off?” Elizabeth set down her coffee mug. “I almost feel sorry for the guy. How is he?”

  “Howland’s taking me to the hospital this morning to see how Henry is. They intend to discharge Oliver today, over my objections.”

  “Anything I can do before I leave for work?”

  “I don’t think so, thanks. I want to finish my column before he gets here.”

  After Elizabeth left, Victoria took out her typewriter. She had finished most of her column when Howland arrived.

  “More coffee, Victoria?” He held up the coffeepot.

  “Thank you.”

  He seated himself across from her and she told him about Lambert Willoughby’s early-morning visit.

  “What did he want?”

  “He wanted to convince me that Henry is the killer.”

  “But you think Oliver’s the killer.”

  “I think the killer is Oliver, Lambert thinks it’s Henry, and Henry insists that Darcy is guilty. He’s not, of course. Darcy wasn’t even here five months ago when Tillie was killed.”

  “Perhaps one of the assessors is the killer.”

  “I can’t picture any of those three elderly women as the killer.”

  “Elderly?” asked Howland.

  “It’s a state of mind,” answered Victoria.

  “I’m not sure there’s a standard for identifying a killer,” said Howland. “Every one of us would kill, given the incentive.”

  “Never,” said Victoria, shaking her head.

  “Suppose someone threatened one of your daughters or your grandchildren?”

  “I’d outthink him.”

  Howland laughed. “Let’s get to the hospital.”

  The West Tisbury Police Bronco was parked in the hospital lot when Howland and Victoria arrived.

  “Why didn’t Casey call me?” Victoria said as they passed through the automatic doors into the emergency room.

  Hope was doing paperwork at the admissions desk. “You’re just in time, Auntie Vic. Reverend True is conscious, and the police hope to get a statement from him. You and Mr. Atherton can go on in.”

  Casey and Junior Norton were standing in the hall outside Henry’s room. “Tried to reach you, Victoria,” Casey said. “The hospital called when he regained consciousness.”

  “I was probably out in the garden,” said Victoria.

  Nurse Mindy was standing by Henry’s bed. She bent down to him and whispered, “Hon, we’ve got visitors. They have some questions to ask you.”

  “Raise the bed, will you?” mumbled Henry. He put his hand up to his bandaged head. “Still pretty groggy,” he said to the group assembled around the foot of the bed.

  “A few questions, sir,” Casey began. “Are you up to it? We don’t want to tire you.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “First of all, we understand you accused your wife, Miss Sampson, of trying to kill you.”

  Henry started to laugh, then held his head again. “If I said that, I must have been out of it.”

  “But she did try to kill you, sir, right?”

  “My wife?”

  “Yes, sir. I understand she tried to kill you.”

  “Of course she didn’t try to kill me.” Henry tried to sit up straighter, and Nurse Mindy fluttered around him. “We have our little spats, the wife and me, like most happily married couples. She has a temper. Redhead, you know?”

  Junior was taking notes. Victoria pulled up a chair and sat. Howland stood by the door, arms crossed.

  Casey continued with her questions. “Would you explain, sir, how you got injured?”

  “She was upset about some little thing I said and banished me from our bedroom. Next morning, I went to apologize, and she was still pretty hot. Threw a lamp at me, didn’t actually mean to hit me.”

  “And that’s it, sir?”

  “Perfectly ordinary spat,” said Henry.

  “Do you intend to press charges?”

  “Good heavens, no,” said Henry, again putting his hand to his head.

  Junior Norton continued to write.

  “You had a roommate, sir,” said Casey, referring to her notes. “Oliver Ashpine. We have a witness who claims Mr. Ashpine tried to smother you with a pillow, is that right?”

  “I don’t even know Ashpine,” said Henry, wrinkling his brow. “Why would he do that?”

  Victoria stood up and started to say something. Casey warned her with a look and Victoria sat down again.

  Casey continued. “He held a pillow over your face. Do you recall that?”

  “First you accuse my wife of trying to kill me, now this Ashpine person.” Henry snorted. “Sounds as though I’m on someone’s hit list.”

  “Sir, we’re quite serious. We have reason to believe Mr. Ashpine was trying to smother you, and if someone hadn’t come into your room just then, he might have succeeded.”

  “I think the visitor misinterpreted Ashpine’s intentions. He was putting another pillow behind my head, that’s all.”

  Victoria watched his expression. He was lying.

  Casey’s expression didn’t change. She said, “You deny, sir, that Mr. Ashpine deliberately put the pillow over your face?”

  “Categorically.”

  “And you don’t want to press charges?”

  “Certainly not.”

  Victoria stood up. Her cheeks were pink. Her eyes glittered. Her lips were pressed tightly together.

  “Is that all?” Henry moved his head to the side. “You can lower my bed, again, nurse.” Then, with a sigh, he said, “I’m glad to have cleared up that little misunderstanding.”

  “Reverend True is tired, now,” chirped Nurse Mindy. “Time to go.”

  “If you change your mind, sir, please contact me.” Casey handed Nurse Mindy her card.

  As soon as they were out in the hall, Victoria sputtered, “The idea! The very idea!”

  Casey shrugged. “Your word against Ashpine’s and Reverend True’s. What can you do?”

  Victoria turned to Howland, who’d been standing silently by the door. “Please, take me home.”

  CHAPTER 35

  On the way back to Victoria’s, Howland made a couple of unsuccessful attempts to calm down Victoria, but she was steaming mad.

  “What’s wrong with him? I can understand his defending his wife, but why should he defend Oliver? He was lying. I feel like a fool. Henry would be dead, if I hadn’t yanked that pillow off his face. And he denies it ever happened. Why?” Victoria slapped her knee. “And Oliver Ashpine is free. To kill again. With impunity!”

  Howland glanced over at her. “Impunity is an excellent weapon.”

  Victoria ignored his attempt at humor. “Nobody believes me. Nice, kind, thoughtful Oliver was simply making Henry more comfortable, according to both of them. He was trying to kill Henry!”

  “I believe you. So does Casey.”

  “Bah!” said Victoria.

  Delilah’s limo was blocking the drive when Victoria and Howland returned from the hospital. She let herself out of Howland’s car without his help and without thanking him and marched up to the limousine. Delilah lowered her window with a pleased smile.

  “You’re blocking my drive,” Victoria said. “No one can get in or out.”

  “I’m sorry.” Delilah emerged from the backseat without waiting for Darcy to open her door. Victoria stood, hands on her hips, annoyed with the world in general. Darcy glanced at her, drove around the circle, and parked under the maple tree. Howland took off without looking back.

  Victoria led
the way into the kitchen, with a begrudging attempt to be civil. She plopped down on a kitchen chair. “What do you want, Delilah?”

  “I’m. embarrassed about yesterday, Mrs. Trumbull. I was so angry at Henry about his porn videos I intended to kill him.”

  “He’s not pressing charges,” said Victoria.

  “He wouldn’t dare. The nerve of him, telling Lee she was going to be a movie star. Lee’s only a kid. She believed him. She actually trusted him.”

  “Tea?” asked Victoria.

  “I can’t stay, but thanks. Did you ever find that deed Mrs. Danvers said I needed?”

  “It slipped my mind,” said Victoria. “Give me a ride to Town Hall and I’ll look for it right now.”

  “I don’t mean to take you from your writing,” Delilah said. “But …”

  “That’s quite all right,” said Victoria. “I need to take my mind off things. Howland and I located most of the files before we found Tillie’s body.”

  “Awful. Just awful!” Delilah held her crimson fingernails against her lips.

  “It won’t take me more than a few minutes.”

  “Are you sure you won’t feel, you know, uncomfortable up there? I mean, after finding what you did? The body?”

  Victoria marched down the stone steps. The fat buds of the double daffodils by the cellar bulkhead were showing streaks of bright yellow, but Victoria didn’t even notice. Every spring, hers were the first in town to bloom.

  Darcy brought the limo around and they headed to Town Hall. There were signs of spring all along the road, clumps of daffodils on Brandy Brow were about to burst into a cloud of sunshine.

  At Town Hall, Mrs. Danvers greeted Victoria with her wintry smile.

  “I’d like to go up to the attic,” Victoria said.

  “Don’t find any more bodies,” said Mrs. Danvers, with a rare burst of humor.

  Delilah gave out a small nervous laugh. “Shall I go up with you, Mrs. Trumbull?”

  “You needn’t. It will take me only a few minutes, ten or fifteen at the most. I know where the folder is.”

  “I’ll wait here, then, if you don’t mind. I’m not sure I can …” Delilah didn’t finish.

  In the morning light, the attic no longer seemed sinister. Victoria found the file box marked “1910,” found a folder inside marked “Deeds,” and carried it downstairs. Delilah was sitting at the long table where the selectmen usually met, examining her nails. Victoria set the folder in front of her on the table.

  “You know you can’t take that out of the building,” said Mrs. Danvers, looking over the top of her glasses, her hands poised above her computer keyboard.

  “We’re looking for that deed you asked for,” said Delilah. “You don’t need to be so, so …”

  Victoria interrupted. “We’ll only be a few minutes, and then, if you don’t mind, I’ll make a copy and take the box back upstairs.”

  Mrs. Danvers sighed. “I’ll take it back. I suppose I ought to see what the attic looks like,” and she turned again to her computer.

  Victoria found the deed, made sure it was what Delilah needed, and went to the copier.

  Mrs. Danvers untangled herself from her ergonomic chair. “I’ll copy it for you.” She took the deed and fed it into the copier.

  “Thank you. How much do I owe you?”

  “Forget it,” said Mrs. Danvers. “Everybody in this town pays too much in taxes. I’m not going to charge you for five sheets of paper.” She stapled the copy together and handed it to Victoria, who gave it to Delilah, who was examining her face in a small mirror, smoothing her lip liner with her pinky finger.

  Delilah put the mirror away in her purse and picked up the deed. She leafed through it, then read until she came to the end. And then she started at the beginning again and studied each sentence, following the words slowly as though she couldn’t understand what she was reading. Her face had paled.

  “What is it?” asked Victoria.

  Mrs. Danvers paused in her typing and looked up.

  Delilah dropped the deed on the table, pushed her chair back, and stared out the window at the church across the road.

  “What is it?” Victoria asked again. “Let me see the deed.”

  Delilah didn’t move.

  Victoria picked up the copy and sat down at the table across from Delilah. The first four pages seemed to be a straightforward transfer of property from Josiah Hammond to his son, Israel, with specific boundaries spelled out. One read, “From the great oak two hundred paces in a southwesterly direction to the rock shaped like a toad …”

  Delilah was slumped in her chair as though her bones had dissolved. Her color had gone from white to a greenish gray hue, and she continued to stare out of the window. Victoria turned to Mrs. Danvers. “I don’t suppose the oak and toadshaped rock are still there?”

  “That property has been surveyed to a fare-thee-well,” said Mrs. Danvers. “Cement bounds with metal plates.” She smiled. “I don’t think that’s her problem.” A nod to Delilah.

  Victoria read on. And there it was. On the last page, in a list of restrictions that carried solemn penalties, was what had stricken Delilah.

  Victoria glanced at her. “The house was never to be torn down, was it?” she said.

  Delilah was silent.

  “If it were to be torn down,” Victoria said as she set the deed to one side, “the property, in its entirety, reverts to the town to be used as a park.”

  Delilah spoke in a small voice. “I’ve got lawyers who will break that.” She seemed to get a spark of courage. “That deed will never hold up.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” said Mrs. Danvers. “When you bought the place, I warned you not to tear down the old Hammond homestead and told you what would happen if you did. Told you it was a historic building. Didn’t listen to me, did you?” Mrs. Danvers pushed her glasses back into place and returned to her computer, with a grim smile.

  Darcy came into Town Hall and spoke softly to Delilah. “The hospital called, Miss Sampson. Reverend True has been released from the hospital, and is ready to be picked up.”

  “Then do it,” said Delilah. “Take Mrs. Trumbull and me home first.”

  “Will you be all right?” asked Victoria.

  “I’ll survive.”

  CHAPTER 36

  In an attempt to clear her mind, Victoria went outside to watch the vivid sunset colors flare and die. The clouds turned a dark purple, wind clouds, she called them. As she was about to go indoors again, Howland drove up. He was carrying a large box of Chilmark Chocolates.

  “To cheer you up, Victoria. A cure for almost everything.”

  Victoria smiled. “Thank you. I’m afraid I was being difficult earlier today.”

  “Understandable.”

  “Would you like tea?”

  “Please.”

  While they were waiting for the water to boil, the phone rang. Victoria answered, listened, then put her hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s Lambert Willoughby. He’s calling from Oliver’s house and he wants me to get there right away.”

  “Did he say what it’s about?”

  “He sounded upset. Will you take me there?”

  “Of course.”

  Victoria spoke into the phone. “Howland and I will be there in ten minutes.”

  When they arrived at Oliver’s house, they heard a dog’s frantic barking. Bertie, Oliver’s Jack Russell, was standing inside the open door, quivering, his feet apart, head up, yapping insistently.

  Willoughby lumbered to the door. “Thank God you got here, Miz Trumbull. Ashpine’s down.”

  “Dead?” asked Victoria.

  “Almost. I called the Tri-Town Ambulance after I called you.”

  “What happened?” asked Howland.

  “I was trying to take a nap and that goddamned mutt was barking his head off. I came over with a baseball bat to shut him up and found Ashpine there.” He pointed to Oliver, who was lying on his back on the floor near his computer. A blanke
t was draped over him.

  “Heart attack?” asked Victoria.

  “Dunno. The mutt is really bullshit about something. I figured since you fingered Ashpine as the killer, you oughtta be the one to collar him.”

  Willoughby was interrupted by a loud crowing from across the lane.

  “Damn, sounds like Chickee’s got out.”

  “Have you given Ashpine first aid?” asked Howland. “Is he breathing?”

  “He’s breathing, kind of. I didn’t move him in case he broke something. Put a blanket over him, is all.”

  The ambulance siren sounded in the distance.

  Chickee crowed. Bertie’s barking was more frenzied.

  The ambulance turned into the lane that ran between the Willoughby and Rivers properties, pulled up in front of Oliver’s house, stopped, and let the siren die. Erica and Jim, the same EMTs Victoria had seen at Delilah’s the day before, hurried up the steps.

  “There’s your man,” said Willoughby, pointing.

  “Any idea what happened?” Jim asked

  “Nope. His dog alerted me, and I came over to shut him up. Found him on the floor. Just like that.”

  Chickee crowed again, closer, and the crow ended in a strangled croak. Bertie continued to yelp.

  Erica knelt by Oliver’s head and felt the left side of his neck for a pulse. “Jim?” she said. “Look here.” Victoria looked, too, and saw a red, thumb-size bruise. Erica pulled the blanket away from his neck and Victoria saw the same red mark on the right side of his neck.

  “Someone tried to cut off his circulation,” said Victoria.

  “Looks that way,” said Jim. “A way to deprive the brain of oxygen.”

  “I’ll call the police,” Victoria said.

  “I called them,” said Erica.

  Bertie, in constant motion, hustled over to the cellar door, scratched at it, and continued to bark. He looked around, and barked still more insistently.

  “Probably smells a rat,” said Willoughby. “Jack Russells is ratters.”

  Chickee squawked and Jordan Rivers entered, holding the rooster, wrapped in a clean T-shirt, against his chest. “What’s going on?”