Star Spangled Murder

by Leslie Meier

  “Who’s got the best team?” she asked Bill, taking her seat beside him. “Should I root for the Bait Buckets or the Nail Bangers?”

  “It’s hard to say,” he said, watching the Bait Bucket’s pitcher warming up. “Jeff Sprague was named to the state all-star team when he was in high school, but the Nail Bangers have some solid hitters.”

  “I guess I’ll cheer for everybody,” she said, shifting over to make room for Elizabeth, who had climbed up the bleachers to join them.

  “Don’t bother, Mom,” she said. “I’m sitting with Molly. I just want to use your sunscreen. Did you bring any?”

  “Sunscreen?” This was the last thing Lucy had expected.

  “Yeah, Mom. You can’t be too careful. Sun causes wrinkles, you know, and I sure don’t want to end up looking like you.”

  “Heaven forbid,” said Lucy, rummaging in her bag. “Isn’t Molly the girl that Toby’s seeing?”

  “Yeah. That’s her talking to him.”

  Lucy abandoned her task and checked the field, where a petite blond in a pink halter top was standing beside Toby. She was shifting her weight from one side to the other, moving her hips provocatively, and had her hand on his arm.

  “I work with her at the inn,” continued Elizabeth. “They hooked up a few weeks ago.”

  “Hooked up?”

  “Yeah, you know, Mom. They’re, uh, a couple now.”

  Lucy looked at Bill, who was nodding approvingly at his son’s choice. He was also smirking.

  “Do you mean they’re . . . ?” Lucy’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that where he’s been spending the night?”

  “Yeah, Mom. He’s twenty-one, you know.”

  Lucy watched as Toby and Molly parted with a kiss, he to join his teammates in the dugout and she taking a seat in the stands.

  “Sunscreen, Mom?”

  “Oh, right.” A bit dazed, Lucy resumed her search and found the tube.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  Elizabeth skipped down the bleacher steps and Lucy turned to Bill.

  “Did you know about this? What do you think? Isn’t he awfully young?”

  “Had to happen sooner or later.” He shrugged philosophically and stood up as the VFW color guard began marching onto the field.

  Lucy was watching Molly, but she couldn’t really learn much from the back of the girl’s head. She turned instead to the color guard, who looked especially sharp as they went through their paces, following Scratch Hallett’s barked orders. The high school band took their places behind the color guard and then a group of singers filed onto the field.

  “Who are they?’ asked the woman next to Lucy. “I don’t recognize them.”

  “Oh my goodness,” said Lucy, recognizing Mike Gold’s curly head of hair. “I think it’s the naturists.”

  “At least they’re wearing clothes,” fumed the woman.

  “They are indeed,” said Lucy, placing her hand over her heart as they began singing the National Anthem.

  As she sang, Lucy’s eyes drifted over the scene: the brightly colored flags snapping in the breeze, the aged members of the color guard standing at attention, the red faces of the high school band members whose uniforms were too warm for the weather and the earnest faces of the chorus. Tears sprang to her eyes as they always did when she heard the Star-Spangled Banner and she was glad she was wearing sunglasses.

  The singers belted out the last words of the song—“and the home of the free”—and everyone cheered and clapped and whistled as the town’s oldest resident, Miss Julia Ward Howe Tilley, was driven onto the field in a red mustang convertible. The car circled the playing field and Miss Tilley waved to everyone, her pleasantly pink face wreathed with an aureole of fluffy white hair. The car stopped at home plate and she was helped from the back seat and led to a spot about fifteen feet from home plate. There Howard White presented her with a brand new ball.

  “This ought to be good,” muttered Bill. “I’ll bet she can’t throw it four feet.”

  “You might be in for a surprise,” said Lucy.

  Miss Tilley bounced the ball a few times in her agespotted hands, leaned forward, winked at the pitcher and hurled it straight into the glove.

  Everyone cheered and clapped enthusiastically as she made her way to the seat of honor behind home plate.

  “Play ball!” yelled the umpire, and the game began.

  First up to bat for the Nail Bangers was Eddie Culpepper, Barney’s son. He was the same age as Toby and Lucy remembered the days when they were on the same Little League team. Quite a few players from that team were playing today: Tim Robbins was playing, as well as Ted’s son Adam. Not Richie Goodman, he was spending the summer in Greece studying ancient ceramics. And come to think of it, Wesley Pratt had been a member of that team, too, though Lucy remembered he rarely showed up for practices. She scanned the field and the bench, but there was no sign of him.

  Hearing a solid thwack she looked up just in time to see Eddie send up a high fly, which was neatly caught by Chuck Swift. That’s how the first half of the inning went, with the Nail Bangers getting some promising hits, but no runs thanks to the Bait Buckets’ competent fielding. After the third out the Nail Bangers took the field, with Eddie pitching. He had quite an arm, but Tim Robbins had been an all-star player when he was in high school. He sent the ball speeding through first and second base and past the fence, rounding the bases to applause and groans.

  After a while Lucy lost interest in the game, simply enjoying sitting in the sun and people watching. Maybe she was crazy, but it looked to her as if folks were a little more prosperous these days. A lot of the kids had new summer clothes instead of thrift shop shorts and tees, she’d noticed some new trucks in the parking lot, and a lot of the young wives had frosted their hair—at ten dollars a foil, that was something that tended to get skipped when money was tight.

  “Those naturists have really given the local economy a boost,” she said.

  “Why do you say that?” asked Bill.

  “People have got money again. Just look around. And it can’t be the lobsters, so it must be the influx of naturists.”

  “That, or the fireworks,” said Bill, groaning as Toby hit a low ball directly to the first baseman who easily caught it.

  “But there aren’t any fireworks,” said Lucy, puzzled.

  “I mean the smuggling.”

  “Smuggling?”

  “A lot of the lobstermen have been buying fireworks in Canada and New Hampshire and taking them down to Massachusetts. They’re illegal there, they don’t sell them in stores and people will pay a lot of money for them.”

  Lucy was horrified. “They should be illegal everywhere, you know. They’re dangerous. Are Chuck and Toby doing that?”

  “Have to ask them,” said Bill, narrowing his eyes and watching closely as the next runner made it to first, by a hair.

  “I will,” said Lucy, her eyes returning to a certain blond head of hair, “I have a lot of questions for Toby. But first I have to go get the potato salad.”

  Bill was on his feet, cheering as Tim Robbins whacked another homer high above the scoreboard.

  Driving home, Lucy’s emotions were in turmoil. Her little boy wasn’t a little boy any more. He was practically setting up housekeeping with that girl. And smuggling! She hoped he wasn’t involved with that. She remembered the blown-out watermelon, she believed fireworks were dangerous, you didn’t have to convince her. How many people would get hurt because of the illegal fireworks the fishermen were smuggling? Kids could lose fingers, even eyes, or be horribly burned, but that didn’t dissuade these fishermen from making a quick buck.

  Though she had to admit, fireworks were legal in lots of places. And to be fair to the fishermen, they worked hard trying to make an honest living, but were constantly frustrated by fisheries’ regulations, unpredictable weather and dramatic fluctuations in fish and shellfish populations due to disease, pollution and even natural causes. There was also a long tradition in Tinker’s C
ove of making money whenever and however you could, dating back to eighteenth-century mooncussers.

  No wonder she couldn’t make much headway in this murder investigation. Folks in this town were slippery and devious. They all had secrets. Here she’d lived next to the Pratts for years and she had no idea what their family life was really like. Had Calvin lived in terror of Pru? Had Wesley grown up simmering with resentment, even hatred for his mother? It certainly seemed likely, but she hadn’t known about it. But the more she thought about it, the surer she was that Pru had been killed by either her husband or her son, or perhaps both of them working together. Just how she was going to prove this, though, was one detail she hadn’t worked out yet.

  Checking her watch, Lucy discovered it had only taken five minutes to make the drive from town. She’d be back in plenty of time for the picnic. She hurried into the house and went straight to the refrigerator, taking out the trays of cooked potatoes, the jars of mayonnaise and, well, where were those eggs?

  She’d left an entire dozen, hard-boiled, in a bowl with a little note on top that said “NO!” in capital letters. Such notes had been Lucy’s solution to the problem of snacking husbands and children, who were continually on the watch for anything edible. They had learned over the years to respect these notes, or risk incurring Lucy’s wrath. That wrath was building, as she scrabbled around the shelves, shoving pickle jars and plastic containers aside in a frantic search for the eggs. All she turned up, was the note, which had landed on top of the crisper.

  What was she going to do? She was known for her potato salad, everybody loved it. And it always had eggs. The eggs gave it a lovely golden tint, and added a nice flavor note. Damn it! She wanted the eggs.

  She looked at the clock. She had time, if she hurried. But where could she get eggs? The stores were closed for the holiday, everybody was at the game, including Ellie. But not Bitsy Parsons, she realized. Members of the Revelation Congregation didn’t celebrate holidays. Maybe she could call Bitsy and ask her to get a dozen eggs cooking. They’d probably be almost done by the time she got there. It was worth a try, she thought, consulting the phone book. But when she dialed, there was no answer.

  No matter, she decided. Bitsy was probably outside tending to her little flower and egg stand. She’d leave a message. It was worth a try, anyway, she decided, packing up the trays of undressed potato salad. If worse came to worst, she could serve one tray plain while she cooked up the eggs in the home ec room at the school and dressed the second tray.

  She was not going to get frantic about this, she told herself as she headed over to Bitsy’s. It was only potato salad. It wasn’t a life and death situation. And the drive to Bitsy’s was beautiful, taking her along Shore Road with its incredible ocean views. Bitsy had certainly lucked out when she came into possession of the family property. It was perched on a rocky bluff high above the water and she had been heard to joke that on a clear day she could see straight to England. She couldn’t, of course, but on certain crystal-clear days it seemed a distinct possibility.

  Lucy took a deep breath of the ozone-scented air when she got out of the car, then leaned back in and honked the horn.

  “Coming, coming!” called Bitsy, hurrying out of the house and drying her hands on a dish towel. She stopped in her tracks when she saw Lucy.

  “Did you get my message?” asked Lucy, running towards her.

  Bitsy stepped back. “Message?”

  “On your answering machine,” said Lucy, impatiently.

  “No. I didn’t notice,” said Bitsy, blinking nervously.

  “Well, I need eggs and I need ’em fast. Any chance you could hard-boil a dozen for me, while I wait?”

  Bitsy looked puzzled. “Are you really here for eggs, Lucy Stone?”

  “Of course,” said Lucy, growing frustrated at Bitsy’s dallying. “Why do you think I came all the way out here on the Fourth of July?” Then Lucy remembered that Bitsy was reputed to have a crush on Calvin Pratt. Could he possibly be paying her a call? Is that why Bitsy seemed so nervous? “Listen,” said Lucy, “I know all about . . .”

  “I’ll get the water started,” said Bitsy, cutting her off. “You go on and get the eggs.”

  That was all Lucy had to hear, she was off and running for the hen house. She yanked the door open, startling a few chickens who rushed out the little door for the safety of the run. Only one or two stubbornly broody hens remained on their nests and Lucy decided she would avoid them. There were plenty of eggs in the other nesting boxes. One on the bottom, in fact, seemed to have nearly a dozen. She bent down, not looking up when she heard Bitsy enter.

  “Are you finding enough?” asked Bitsy.

  Lucy turned to answer, but never had a chance to speak. She was out like a light before she knew what hit her.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Lucy didn’t want to wake up, so she kept her eyes screwed tight shut. She had a pounding headache and if she could only go back to sleep she wouldn’t have to deal with it. Or the pain in her shoulders and arms. The arm she was lying on was asleep and if she moved it, if she rolled over onto her other side, she might be able to get back to sleep. But she couldn’t move her arms. That’s when she realized she was tied up.

  Eyes wide open, she discovered she was lying in the sawdust litter on the floor of Bitsy’s chicken house. The chickens didn’t seem to mind this strange creature in their midst; one was perching on her foot. Lucy shook her foot as well as she could, considering a rope was neatly looped around both ankles and dislodged the bird, who ruffled its feathers in protest before hopping up onto a perch. The occasional clucks of the chickens had an oddly soothing effect, but Lucy didn’t want to be soothed. She needed to get out of there before whoever did this to her came back to finish the job.

  Who had done it? Had Bitsy conked her on the head and tied her up? It seemed impossible. Bitsy was a little homebody who loved her chickens. She was a faithful member of the Revelation Congregation, a sect that Lucy did not necessarily agree with on doctrinal points but which held its members to the highest standards of conduct. Members didn’t smoke, drink, dance or play cards, but they apparently did conk people on the head and tie them up. Lucy couldn’t believe it. Just thinking about it made her headache worse.

  She had to get out of here and figure out what was going on. Maybe it wasn’t Bitsy who had tied her up; maybe it was Calvin or Wesley, or some maniacal stranger who might also have attacked Bitsy. Who might even be doing awful things to Bitsy at this very moment. And who might be saving her for last.

  Lucy struggled against the ropes, straining against them in hopes of loosening the knots. She couldn’t tie a knot to save her soul, not one that would actually hold against persistent pressure, and she hoped whoever had trussed her up like this was similarly challenged. It hurt her sore muscles to tense them and her efforts to twist loose from the ropes around her wrists seemed only to have the opposite effect of tightening them, and rubbing her skin raw. She let out a huge sigh of frustration and realized her mistake when a cloud of sawdust rose and settled back on her face, causing her to sneeze furiously. She knew she had to get control of herself, so she concentrated on her breathing and gradually her heart stopped racing and the sneezing was replaced with persistently running eyes and nose she could do nothing about.

  When she heard the door opening her heart began pounding with fear, a reaction that didn’t subside when she recognized Bitsy, holding an evil little hatchet. It was so sharp that the edge gleamed, despite the deepening gloom. How long had she been here, she wondered. From the lengthening shadows she guessed it must be close to seven o’clock.

  “Oh, dear,” said Bitsy, standing before her and waving the hatchet. “Oh, dear. Oh, dear.”

  “Could you do something for me?” asked Lucy, struggling to keep her voice conversational. “Could you untie me?”

  “Oh, silly me,” exlaimed Bitsy. “What was I thinking?”

  She immediately fell to her knees and began sawing away at
the ropes. Lucy sat up, wiggling her toes and turning her feet in circles to restore the circulation and gently rubbing her tender wrists. She wanted to question Bitsy about what happened but hesitated for fear of setting off some sort of psychological fit. She was beginning to doubt Bitsy’s sanity. And she still had that hatchet.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Lucy. This was a terrible thing to do,” said Bitsy. “I just panicked when I saw you, but now I see the error of my ways. I spent the afternoon praying and God has told me what I must do.”

  “And what’s that?” asked Lucy in a small voice, keeping a wary eye on that hatchet.

  “I have to accept responsibility for what I did. I have to go to the police and confess. Will you take me, Lucy?”

  “Take you to the police station? That’s not necessary, Bitsy,” babbled Lucy, giddy with relief. “We all make mistakes. I’m perfectly happy to forget about this. I don’t want to press charges.”

  “You didn’t know?” asked Bitsy, looking down at the blade. “You didn’t figure it out?”

  “I just came for some eggs,” said Lucy. “Figure what out?”

  “That I killed Prudence Pratt.”

  The confession hit Lucy like a sledgehammer.

  “You killed Pru?” she stammered.

  Bitsy fell to her knees, facing Lucy, and letting the hatchet drop to the floor beside her. “If only I could do it over and take it all back,” she said, sobbing. “I just lost my temper—I literally saw red—and when it was over, Prudence was lying there in the driveway. Dead.”