by Janet Bolin
Naomi stepped forward, her narrow shoulders fragile, her head up. “What happened, Smythe?” she asked in her usual sweet and gentle tones.
Smythe rubbed his forehead, then pinched the top of his nose between thumb and finger. “Last Tuesday evening, after I talked to you ladies, I started toward Erie. Mike passed me in his pickup and waved at me to pull off.” Smythe caught his breath with a gulp. “He said we were going to torch Willow’s cottage—”
I interrupted him. “Who’s ‘we’?”
Smythe looked surprised I would ask that. “Mike and I. He told me to check into my hotel in Erie, then come back to, as he called it, get in on the fun, because the conference would give me a perfect alibi.” Drooping against my table, Smythe studied the backs of his hands. “I knew Mike. He would find a way to blame me, but I agreed to go with him.” As if afraid to let me see the entreaty on his face, he looked past me toward my back window. “I had a good reason. I was going to stop him from burning Willow’s cottage down.”
I closed my eyes, swayed involuntarily, and opened them again. If Smythe was to be believed, I owed him for saving Blueberry Cottage.
I said quietly, “So you were the one who broke into my store, stole my camera, and erased photographs from my computer.”
He started to shake his head, then gave me a rueful smile. “I’m sorry, Willow. I heard about the photos you had on your computer, and I figured out that the one they were talking about, supposedly of Mike, was of me. Sooner or later, someone would recognize me, even though I wasn’t wearing my usual hat and coat, and they’d jump to the wrong conclusion about where I was when Mike was attacked. But I didn’t kill him, didn’t touch him, and didn’t want any evidence around that might make it look like I did. I was going to return your camera to you.”
“With the pictures erased?” I asked.
He gave a dejected little nod.
If Smythe had worn his usual cap, I’d have known right away who he was. If he hadn’t been wearing a bright orange cap, though, I might not have stopped to take pictures. I asked him, “Why did you wear a cap from Mike’s vineyard on your long walk home?”
“I forgot and left my hat in my hotel room that night. Mike gave me his.”
“And he wore . . . ?” I asked.
“He didn’t wear one. He was being macho.”
That was easy enough to believe. He hadn’t worn one earlier that day, either. “How did you end up with a padlock matching mine?”
Smythe toed at the grain of my walnut floor. “Mike brought it in a package with a key that would open your gates. After he unlocked your gate, he told me to hang on to his lock and keys for him. He gave me the packaging, too. I was going to give it all back, but I . . . kind of left your place in a hurry that night, Willow. After I heard he died, I didn’t see the point in returning them.”
“And the lock turned out to be very handy when you got home, didn’t it,” I challenged. “You could lock your hat, coat, and gloves in your shed. Maybe you were afraid they had blood on them.”
He gaped at me. “They reeked of gasoline. I didn’t want them stinking up my house. I hung them in the shed to air out.”
“And you locked the shed,” I repeated.
He pulled his stocking cap out of his pocket and shoved it onto his curls, covering his eyes for a second before rolling up the bottom edge. “That was later. I’d seen some kids hanging around.” His gaze didn’t meet mine.
More likely, he locked the clothing in the shed after he heard about the photo the local sleuths had seen on my computer.
Edna flipped a page in her notebook. “You drove to Erie that night, checked in at the hotel, then drove back. Where did you park your truck, and how did you get to Willow’s?”
Smythe steadied himself against the table. “I left my truck at Mike’s. I rode behind him on his ATV.”
I burst out, “Why did he drive that? It made a racket and woke me up.”
Herb answered for Smythe. “Mike liked being noticed, and he probably wanted to prove you couldn’t keep ATVs off the trail.”
“Mike was a daredevil,” Irv said. “He wouldn’t have minded if you caught him. He’d have charmed you into helping him burn down your own shed.”
“Cottage,” I corrected automatically. “And nothing would have made me destroy it.”
Smythe looked more hangdog than my enthusiastic dogs ever could. “Mike brought his ATV so we could avoid roads when we made our getaway. He said we would never get caught.”
Threadville tourists gasped. My sisters-in-thread.
Naomi extended both hands, palms up, toward Smythe. “How did you stop Mike from torching Willow’s cottage, Smythe?”
Smythe rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. “Mike had brought along a can of gasoline. He told me to douse Willow’s cottage while he broke into her lean-to. I dumped the gas out of the can, safely far from Willow’s cottage.” Smyth’s yellow parka seemed to deflate. “Mike came out of Willow’s lean-to. He was carrying her paddle like a weapon. He charged me and swung it, like my head was a baseball and the paddle was a bat.”
Naomi’s hands flew to her cheeks. “Smythe, how perfectly terrible! What did you do?” Although she resembled a kindly aunt, she was as good as any policeman about questioning her suspect.
“The only thing possible. I ducked, ran out the gate we’d left open, and escaped. I didn’t understand what it had all been about at first, but I’ve thought about it ever since. Mike had known Willow’s canoe paddle was in her lean-to and broke in specifically to get it. He had planned all along to knock me out, set fire to the cottage, and leave me for Willow to find.”
The shop was silent except for several audible intakes of breath.
“My so-called perfect alibi wouldn’t matter,” Smythe went on. “Everyone would believe that I had burned down Willow’s cottage, and that she’d attacked me because of it. The key that opened her gate would have been in my pocket.”
All very plausible, except for one detail. I asked, “When you escaped, why didn’t Mike follow you on his ATV? That doesn’t sound like him.”
Smythe admitted, “I expected him to. I cut through backyards, first the General Store’s, then around behind others until I was out of town. I didn’t hear the ATV, or anything besides my own boots hitting the ground and my breathing.”
With Clay at my back like a coiled spring, I bravely left the dog pen and stood up to Smythe. “Why would Mike go to so much trouble to burn down my cottage and hurt you in the process?”
Smythe hauled in one harsh breath, then another. “You stood up to him in public. He always bragged that he didn’t get mad, he got even. And that’s how he lived his life. I was the most available scapegoat. He thought he could tempt me with my ‘perfect’ alibi.”
Sally and Tally whined. Clay pulled them closer.
Haylee’s face could have been carved from wood. “Mike hated you, Smythe. He set you up.”
Irv growled, “Mike wasn’t that smart. Smythe’s making it up to save his skin.”
Smythe flushed but didn’t take his eyes off Haylee. “Mike certainly didn’t set me up to murder him. I don’t know who attacked him after I left. All I know is Mike liked to watch buildings burn but didn’t want to be blamed.”
Haylee interrupted him, speaking more harshly than ever. “He could only blame you if you didn’t stand up for yourself.”
Smythe bowed his head. “True, but—” He didn’t have to say the rest. Mike had probably cowed him all his life.
Edna had a different interpretation. “He could have blamed you if he hurt you so badly you couldn’t stand up for yourself.”
Naomi asked gently, “Did you have to defend yourself from him, Smythe?”
“No!” I’d never seen Smythe this assertive before. “I told you. I left.”
Edna turned pages in her notebook. She cast a condemning glower toward Herb. “Okay, Smythe, if you didn’t hit Mike with that canoe paddle, who did?”
“I don
’t know.”
The trouble was, I believed him, and I’d learned to read Haylee and The Three Weird Mothers. They believed him, too.
I’d built up a case against a person who might prove to be innocent. I was worse than Uncle Allen and the state troopers, who had not yet accused anyone, including me, of murdering Mike. I felt sick.
Edna asked, “Smythe, did you see or hear anyone else in Willow’s yard or cottage that night?”
“No,” he answered. “I was too busy running away.”
Irv let out a scornful laugh. “Smythe was always good at running away.”
“What about vehicles?” I asked, remembering the dark pickup truck that Uncle Allen and I had seen.
Smythe closed his eyes as if trying to bring back that night. “I heard something with noisy snow tires roaring down Lake Street shortly after Mike shut off his ATV.”
Uncle Allen and I looked at each other. When I’d tried to describe the truck to Trooper Gartener, I’d forgotten that the sound of the truck’s tires on pavement had seemed loud considering that the truck had only been creeping along.
From Uncle Allen’s expression, he was remembering the same thing. “Could you tell which direction it was going?”
Smythe studied his fists. “So many things happened at once. It sounded like it was heading toward the beach. But I think it stopped before it got there.”
Uncle Allen and I gave each other a slow, measuring assessment. Were we drawing the same conclusions? The truck could have parked at the end of the trail, and Mike’s murderer could have approached on foot.
But how would the killer have known what was going on? Had Mike arranged for someone besides Smythe to help burn down my cottage? Someone who may have been the actual killer?
I went through the exact order of what I remembered from that night. The ATV had awakened me. The dogs had barked. I’d still been trying to wake up enough to sort it all out when the ATV’s engine shut off. I’d hidden my head, first under my duvet and then under my pillow, trying to go back to sleep, but the dogs had continued their fussing and barking. I’d given up sleeping after what seemed like ten minutes but may have been as little as five, then had taken another few minutes to dress before I let the dogs out.
Everything that Smythe had described could have happened during the ten or so minutes from when Mike shut off his ATV to when the dogs and I made it outside. Mike could have unlocked the gate and brought the gas can into my yard. Smythe could have dumped out the gas while Mike broke into my lean-to and got my canoe paddle. If they’d raised their voices when Mike swung the paddle at Smythe, I hadn’t heard them over the dogs’ racket.
The timing worked. Smythe could have been telling the truth. The killer could have parked the truck with the noisy snow tires on Lake Street and come along the trail on foot. He could have spied on Mike and Smythe, could have seen Smythe run away, and could have been certain that Smythe didn’t know he was there. This third person could have attacked Mike, only to be interrupted by my dogs racing down the hill and barking.
Desperate for a place to hide, the attacker must have broken into Blueberry Cottage and watched to see what we did. The moment we ran back up the hill, he’d have had at least five more minutes while I phoned for help and let Dr. Wrinklesides into the yard. He could have rushed out of Blueberry Cottage and finished his attack. That explained why my canoe paddle had suddenly appeared next to Mike. Then the attacker would have had time to run to his truck, hop in, and be at the intersection of Lake and Cayuga at about the moment that Uncle Allen arrived in my front yard.
What were the odds that the truck Uncle Allen and I saw had nothing to do with the case?
Smythe had reported that Mike had said “we” were going to burn down my cottage, and Smythe had assumed that by “we,” Mike meant the two of them. But what if someone else was involved and Mike hadn’t told Smythe?
I asked, “Smythe, when you heard the truck with the snow tires stop nearby, did either you or Mike consider leaving before someone caught you in my yard?”
Smythe bit his lip. “I did urge him to leave. But he just said something like ‘the more the merrier.’”
Rhonda’s mouth curved up in a fond smile. “That would be like him.”
Yes, I thought. Especially if he’d known all along that a third person was coming.
I stepped closer to Smythe. “Was Mike the usual instigator for his arsons?”
He looked bewildered. “Usually.”
“Tell me exactly what he said when he pulled you off the highway to get him to join you.”
“He said”—Smythe scrunched up his face and closed his eyes—“we were going to burn down your cottage, and it was his job to bring the gasoline because he would be coming on his ATV and it wouldn’t stink up anyone’s truck.” He opened his eyes, apparently waiting for my reaction.
I suggested, “And you thought he meant your truck or his truck?”
Smythe nodded.
“Could he have been talking about a third truck? Someone else’s, someone who had assigned him the job of bringing the gasoline? Someone who conveniently arrived after you were supposed to have been knocked out? Maybe someone who set the whole thing up because he had a serious grudge against Mike, and no one would think of blaming him for Mike’s death because you or I would be the obvious suspect?”
The speed of Smythe’s nodding accelerated, and he began looking relieved. “Yes,” he said. “Yes to all of it.”
I glanced at Uncle Allen. “So now maybe we’re looking for a dark pickup truck with snow tires. Maybe belonging to someone who was capable of ordering Mike around.” Unlike Smythe.
I scanned faces in the crowd for anyone who appeared nervous. Aunt Betty thrust her many chins forward. “I drive a black pickup with snow tires, but I wasn’t out that night. I was home with Uncle Allen, as he well knows.”
Herb’s gaze didn’t meet mine. Like nearly everyone else, Herb drove a black pickup. He lived out in the country, and probably had snow tires, too.
Trying to make it look accidental, I backed into a display of threads, jostling about a zillion spools out onto the floor. As I’d hoped, people scrambled to pick them up and give them back to me. Sally and Tally barked their pleasure at seeing humans involved in something resembling the games they liked to play.
Acting like a flustered shopkeeper, I asked Herb to check underneath my cutting table in case any spools rolled under there. With a smiling salute, he got down on his hands and knees. Smythe and Irv joined him. Their hands patted the floor. Spools clicked and clattered as they rolled away from the men.
The soles of Herb’s and Smythe’s boots had a little mud in the treads.
The sole of one of Irv’s boots had a little mud in the treads, too, next to an aqua outline so broken up that it looked more like thread than paint. Most of the paint must have rubbed off, but it was obvious that it had originally been one solid blotch, roughly the shape of Ohio.
35
HERB AND SMYTHE STOOD AND HANDED me spools of thread. I thanked them, set the spools on the counter, and whipped Smythe’s map from my pocket. In the brightly lit store, I saw things I hadn’t noticed in the cold dawn.
Boundary lines and names.
The upper two-thirds of the map showed Smythe’s farm and was labeled with his last name, Castor. The bottom third was divided roughly in half, with grapes on the section labeled Krawbach, and sheaves of wheat on the section labeled Oslington, Irv’s last name. The woodlot covered the area where the three farms met. The main feature in the Oslington section of the woodlot was a drawing of a gigantic tree with every child’s dream tree house perched among the branches. That must have been the tree house that Irv had said Smythe loved.
I’d figured out the motive but had assigned it to the wrong person. That valuable tree must have belonged to Irv, and Mike had sold that tree and probably a few others of Irv’s to a logging company.
But why would Irv kill him over that? Why not report the theft and let
the authorities deal with Mike?
Had Mike known something that Irv couldn’t let the rest of the world know, something that could end Irv’s career, perhaps land him in jail?
Pete DeGlazier was staring at me. He couldn’t help nodding. Maybe Mike and Irv had worked together to steal Pete’s fishing hut and equipment and sell them. Or they had pulled other similar “pranks” together.
Irv was still under the cutting table, presumably collecting spools.
I grabbed Uncle Allen’s arm and pointed at the sole of Irv’s boot. Uncle Allen bent over. Slowly, he rose, and I saw understanding in his eyes, along with apology and a great deal of hurt. He was going to have to arrest the mayor of Elderberry Bay. When Mike and Irv were teens, Uncle Allen had done all he could to keep the boys out of trouble. And now one of them had murdered the other. I wondered if Uncle Allen had always been afraid of just such an outcome. Maybe after the younger men outgrew their teens, Uncle Allen had relaxed, but the animosities between the two men had continued to fester . . .
Irv crawled out from under the table and handed me a spool of thread as red as his face.
“Irv,” Uncle Allen said gently, “give me your boots.”
Irv rolled his eyes as if to say that Uncle Allen had finally lost it, but he sat on the floor and dragged off his boots, one by one, and set them where Uncle Allen could reach them.
Irv had been underneath that table for a longer time than the other two men, but had come up with only one spool of thread. What had he been doing? I squatted to peer underneath the lowest shelf.
A wooden button lay near one of the table legs. I had vacuumed carefully the night before. I jumped up. “Detective DeGlazier, look at what appeared just now underneath my table.”
With much creaking, he flattened himself to look. His voice came out muffled. “Get me a bag, Miss Vanderling.”
Edna leaned forward as if she could see through the table. “A paper bag, Willow. What’s under there?”
