Crime & Punctuation

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  The newcomer was no one I knew, but the fact that she, like Darlene, was in a wheelchair, had me staring at her as she maneuvered it skillfully through the entrance. No one came in with her. She rolled herself over to Sarah’s command center.

  “It must be treat the halt and lame day,” Darlene whispered. The snarkiness in her voice was impossible to miss.

  “Darlene!”

  “What? Don’t look so appalled. It’s only politically incorrect if you make fun of cripples. We’re allowed to diss each other.”

  Since I didn’t have a good comeback, I settled for shaking my head from side to side.

  Ignoring my reaction, Darlene rolled herself over to the reception desk and pulled up beside the other wheelchair. “Hey, Linda, what kind of mileage do you get on that thing?”

  Linda, a heavyset woman somewhere in her forties, directed a contemptuous look at Darlene’s wheels. It was justified. Linda was operating a state-of-the-art deluxe model with all the bells and whistles. It was sleek, streamlined, sturdy, compact, and motorized, making it all the more obvious that Darlene’s ride was more closely akin to what hospitals use to transport discharged patients from a room to a waiting car.

  Darlene’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “This is temporary. You think your chair is so great? I’ll match my scooter against it anytime. I’ve had her up to ramming speed.”

  I listened to this boast in amazement. According to what Darlene had told me the first time she showed me her scooter, it couldn’t go any faster than three-point-seven miles per hour. At that rate, I doubted she could do much damage to anyone but herself.

  Linda looked as skeptical as I felt. “Speed isn’t everything.”

  “Said the tortoise to the hare. Want to race? Even in this clunker, I bet I could beat you.” She gestured toward the area where those needing new glasses selected their frames and had their faces scanned to be sure their new spectacles would fit correctly. “First one to circle those displays three times wins.”

  “Tempting,” Linda said, eyeing the obstacle course with the beginning of a smile on her face.

  “Honestly, Darlene,” Sarah interrupted from her perch behind the counter. “Act your age.”

  “I will if you will,” Darlene quipped without looking at her.

  Sarah drew back as if she’d been slapped. She glared at the two women on the other side of the reception desk before glancing over her shoulder toward the examining rooms. No one else was in sight. I couldn’t see what she was reaching for behind the counter, but my money was on an intercom button or a phone.

  I had the sinking feeling that I was about to have to play traffic cop. Even though I hadn’t been back in Lenape Hollow long, my friendship with Darlene had resumed so easily that it had seemed as if we’d never been apart. I’d thought I knew her, but this was a side I hadn’t seen before. I couldn’t tell if she was serious about her challenge to Linda or not. If she was, the sheer recklessness of her suggestion set off alarm bells. The space between the displays was barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side. The mental image of two wheelchairs careening wildly around the impromptu speedway was enough to have me tossing aside my magazine and heading toward the two would-be Indy drivers.

  “Take a chill pill, Sarah,” Darlene said as I came up beside her. “Now that I think about it, this baby is better suited to a monster truck rally than a drag race.”

  By this point, Linda had thoroughly mellowed. “Bring your scooter over to my place anytime,” she invited, “and we’ll see just who can go faster.”

  “You’re on.” Darlene grinned at her.

  Before they could set a date, the eye doctor’s assistant reappeared to call Darlene’s name. My friend’s good humor abruptly vanished. Shoulders hunched, she submitted to being wheeled away while I returned to my seat in the waiting room.

  The faint hum of Linda’s wheelchair followed me across the tiled floor, but since she promptly took out a book and ignored me in favor of reading, I made no attempt to engage her in conversation. Instead, I brooded.

  I was more certain than ever that something was bugging Darlene. The look on her face just now made me think I could pin down the cause. It seemed reasonable to assume that she wasn’t her usual calm, cheerful self because she was stressed about this appointment with the eye doctor. I concluded that she anticipated a bad report on her eyesight.

  At our age, that wasn’t unlikely. I have a friend who is slowly going blind from macular degeneration, a truly scary diagnosis. Another acquaintance has a macular pucker, what her eye doctor describes as “a wrinkle on the retina.” I haven’t escaped unscathed, either. To ward off glaucoma, I put drops in my eyes once a day to keep the pressure where it should be, and I have the beginnings of cataracts. My eye doctor back in Maine has been trying to convince me to have minor surgery that will leave me seeing well enough to discard my glasses. I keep putting it off. Okay, I admit it—I’m a coward. I’d just as soon avoid any kind of surgery. Besides, I’m used to wearing glasses. I got my first pair when I was ten.

  As the wait stretched past the half-hour mark, I stood up to stare out the window at the parking lot. Across the street was one of those buildings with the OPENING SOON sign in the window. I frowned. There was a second possibility to explain Darlene’s state of mind. I’d just as soon be wrong about her health, but it was equally disturbing to think that Darlene and Frank might be in serious financial difficulties because of the money they’d lost on one of Greg Onslow’s schemes.

  That train of thought brought me back to Tiffany’s death. Passions had been high even before she died, and the provisions in her will were sure to set off fireworks. Greg Onslow hadn’t struck me as the type to go down without a fight.

  I wondered who would inherit the shares if Ronnie died.

  Abruptly, I resumed my seat in the comfortably padded waiting room chair. Rein in your imagination, I ordered myself. This isn’t the nineteen-thirties. No one is going around bumping off people who are opposed to the theme park.

  Darlene reappeared a short time later. Now her mood was pensive, and she scarcely said two words to me all the way back to her house.

  “You okay?” I asked after I’d pulled into her driveway and turned off the engine.

  “Just tired. I’d ask you in, but all I really want to do right now is take a nap.”

  Unable to argue with that, I unloaded the wheelchair, saw her safely inside, and left.

  Chapter 13

  Darlene’s black mood was infectious.

  What I should have done was go straight home. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have plenty of editing waiting for me, and there were workmen in the house who might have questions for me. And of course, Tiffany’s thumb drive still contained dozens of files that I had yet to open.

  Instead, I headed out into the countryside and drove aimlessly, surprising myself by ending up at Bethel Woods, the center for the arts built on the site of the Woodstock Festival. I’d already been living in Maine that August weekend in 1969, blissfully unaware that history was being made within fifteen miles of my old stomping grounds.

  Whatever Max Yasgur’s dairy farm had been like during that long-ago happening, on this particular morning the site was a quiet rural haven. I promised myself I’d come back one day soon to explore the grounds, the museum, and the performance center, but for the moment I settled for taking a few pictures of what was left of the fall foliage. I tried my best not to think about anything other than the beauty of a pleasantly mild autumn day.

  When my stomach growled, reminding me that it was lunchtime, I headed back to Lenape Hollow, but instead of going home, I detoured to Harriet’s. In addition to coffee and pastries, the restaurant served a selection of soups and sandwiches from noon until two in the afternoon, at which time it closed for the day.

  On this, my second visit to the place, I got my first look at the proprietor, a small woman wrapped in an overlarge apron. Since her
sole waitress was on a break—not too surprising, since I was the only customer in sight—she came out in person to take my order.

  “So you’re Harriet?” I asked.

  Her dark eyes twinkled. “There is no Harriet. Never has been. Only me. Ada Patel, at your service.” Her accent placed her origins as somewhat south of Lenape Hollow—probably in the vicinity of Passaic, New Jersey.

  A few minutes later, Ada slid a plate containing my turkey sandwich and fries onto the table in front of me.

  “Anything else I can get ya?”

  “I’m all set, but I’m also curious. Has this restaurant been here long?”

  “About a year. For this burg, that’s good going. You wouldn’t believe how many eateries go in and out of business in a twelve-month stretch.”

  “I did notice a Thai place that was boarded up.”

  “They were nice folks. Too bad they knuckled under and sold out.”

  I quirked a brow at her, but she didn’t explain.

  The arrival of a new customer put an end to our conversation. Fishing an order pad out of her apron pocket, Ada went to greet the newcomer. I recognized him from somewhere. He was distinctive-looking with gorgeous olive skin and dark hair that fell in loose curls to his collar, but it took me a moment to place him as the man I’d seen quarreling with Greg Onslow in the cemetery and again later at Ronnie’s house. Then he’d been wearing a suit. Now he was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. Catching his eye, I waved him over.

  “If you’d like company while you eat, I’d be delighted to have you join me.”

  He stood beside my table with a look of mild confusion on his face. “Do I know you?”

  I introduced myself and explained where I’d seen him before. “I admit to issuing my invitation out of sheer nosiness. I’m curious to learn more about your opposition to the theme park.”

  “You sure know how to ruin a guy’s appetite, don’t you?”

  “If you’d rather not—”

  He sat down. “The more people we can persuade to support us, the better. I’m Joe Ramirez. I own a gas station here in the village, and I’m a member of the board of the local Chamber of Commerce.”

  “Mikki Lincoln. I just moved back to Lenape Hollow.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I heard about you. You bought the old Kirkland place on Wedemeyer Terrace.”

  “I beg your pardon. I bought the old Greenleigh place. It was my home fifty years ago, and now it is again.”

  “So that’s how you know Mrs. North.”

  “She was a classmate of mine.”

  I filed away the fact that she was “Mrs. North” and not “Ronnie.” True, Ramirez was much our junior, but even five decades ago a lot of us called some adults—our parents’ friends and even a few of our teachers—by their first names. Folks I’d met who’d been brought up in the South had been appalled by this practice.

  “Terrific woman,” Ramirez said of Ronnie after Ada brought him his lunch. “She does a lot for the community. Not just financially, either. She helped organize the village thrift shop and she volunteers at the food bank.”

  Philanthropy was not something I’d ever have associated with my nemesis, but people did change as they got older. I listened to him sing her praises for a few more minutes before I interrupted to ask what he had against Wonderful World. While we ate, he outlined the drawbacks to Onslow’s plans, most of which had to do with the proposed location of the theme park and the disruption it would cause for its neighbors.

  “Add to that, Onslow is dishonest,” Ramirez said.

  “Dishonest in what way?” I polished off the final bite of my sandwich and reached for the last of the fries.

  “He’s a con man. Everyone knows it, too. Unfortunately, we haven’t had any luck proving it.” He’d made short work of a cheeseburger but lingered over his coffee.

  “If you have no proof, how can you be so certain it’s true?” I thought this was a reasonable question.

  He leaned across the table, lowering his voice even though there were no other customers to overhear what he said. “Tiffany Scott had proof. Now she’s dead. What does that tell you?”

  His insinuation had my eyebrows shooting up. “Are you telling me you think her husband drowned her?”

  A look of disappointment on his face, Ramirez abruptly stood. “And that’s what we’re up against. No one wants to believe anything bad about the town’s golden boy.”

  “Oh, I’m willing to accept that he’s a shady character, even a crook, but a murderer?” Even though that possibility had already crossed my mind, it sounded preposterous when Ramirez said it aloud.

  “I wouldn’t put anything past him, but you’re right. I’ve got no evidence, just suspicions.” His face relaxed into a rueful half smile. “I guess there ought to be smoke before I yell fire, especially since it turned out I was wrong about him benefitting financially from his wife’s death. He already had control of her money.”

  “Onslow threatened you,” I said, remembering the quarrel I’d overheard.

  Ramirez grinned. “Yeah. What was it? ‘Try and stop me, and you’ll regret it’?”

  “You don’t seem worried.”

  Ramirez just shrugged.

  “Do you really think you can stop him building the theme park?”

  “That’s the plan.” He mimed tipping a nonexistent hat as he backed away from me. “It’s been nice meeting you, Mrs. Lincoln. Best of luck fixing up the old Greenleigh place.”

  I left Harriet’s soon after Joe Ramirez did, driving home in a thoughtful frame of mind. I knew for a fact that there was no file named “TheGoodsOnMyHusband.doc” on Tiffany’s thumb drive, but the possibility that she’d left behind proof of his corruption was an appealing one.

  Back at my computer, I took a second look at “blackmail. doc.” Could it possibly be something Tiffany had copied from Greg Onslow’s files? The numbers and dates meant nothing to me, and once again I was struck by how relatively small the amounts were. I concluded that my earlier guess was probably correct—this had to do with fictional crooks rather than real ones.

  For the next fifteen minutes I randomly opened other files. The fifth try brought up a spreadsheet that was even more incomprehensible than the contents of the blackmail file. Have I mentioned that I hate spreadsheets? I have trouble making sense of them even when I’m the one creating them. This one appeared to be a record of expenses. I squinted at the screen, hoping for a breakthrough. That’s when I noticed the name Jack Tucker at the bottom of the page and started to laugh. This file, at least, had nothing to do with Onslow’s illicit financial dealings. Jack Tucker was one of the gangsters Tiffany had created to populate her novel.

  Chapter 14

  Over the weekend, when the workmen were off and it was quiet in the house, I spent two productive days going over clients’ manuscripts and trying to read a bit more of Tiffany’s novel. It was slow going, and the research files I sampled weren’t much better. I could only do a little bit at a time. The more I read, the more I began to doubt my earlier convictions. Surely the police knew their business. I plodded on, but with less and less enthusiasm for my self-imposed task. I found it very easy to abandon the project when Calpurnia demanded her fair share of attention.

  Once I’d set Tiffany’s files aside, I didn’t go back to them. Instead, since the renovations on the second-floor bath were complete, I spent Sunday evening adding the finishing touches. Calpurnia followed me as I entered this large room located just at the top of the stairs and began her own inspection of the premises. She’s always been fond of bathrooms. In our house in Maine, she used to sit on the edge of the tub and bat at the bubbles in the water.

  “It’s smaller than I remembered,” I told her, “but it’s big for a bathroom. It was probably a bedroom in the original floorplan, before they added indoor plumbing.” The house was built early in the twentieth century, probably around 1908.

  There was plenty of space for a nice old dressing table with a three-
section mirror. I’d bought it at an auction years ago and refinished it myself. A wide, padded bench went with it. Both had been crowded into my bedroom for the last few days to give the plumber room to work. Once those two items were back in place, I got out the picture hangers and put up several framed nineteenth-century fashion prints. I completed my decorating efforts by adding a trio of colorful scatter rugs and hanging matching curtains at the single small, square window.

  Every once in a while, nostalgia catches me by surprise. It washed over me then, as I stood staring across the short distance between my house and the one next door. Although the neighbors had their lights on upstairs, the curtains were closed and there was nothing for me to see. That hadn’t always been the case.

  “I was a snoopy kid,” I said aloud.

  For once, Calpurnia looked interested.

  “From what was my bedroom, the room that’s now going to be my office, I used to spy on our neighbors on the other side. They had a nephew living with them, and he used to make out with his girlfriends in the hammock that was right under my windows.”

  I glanced over my shoulder to see if Calpurnia was listening. She was in the sink, looking hopefully at the faucet. She much prefers running water to what I put in her bowl.

  “Pay attention. I’m confessing my sins here.”

  After I obliged her by starting a thin stream of water flowing into the sink, I returned to the bathroom window and was hit by another flashback. I’d been standing in this exact spot, and I remembered the whole embarrassing incident with crystal clarity.

  When I was growing up, the house on this side had belonged to a middle-aged widow named Cora Cavendish. As many people did in those days, she’d taken in a roomer or two during the summer. Later, she’d converted her entire second floor into an apartment. I was in high school the year she rented it to our new music teacher. Everyone was curious about him, so I’d had no qualms about stationing myself at this vantage point in the hope of catching a glimpse of him.