Birthday Party Murder

by Leslie Meier

  Papa was an important man, a judge, and Julia knew she must always make a good impression that would reflect positively on him. It wouldn’t do for a judge to have a daughter who didn’t know how to behave. People would lose respect for him and it was absolutely essential that people have respect for the law. Julia could hear him saying the words, putting the stress on the lute of absolutely and the sen of essential. Absolutely essential. But Papa wasn’t lecturing her now, he was humming a tune as he rolled along at a sedate pace in his gleaming black motorcar.

  “What is that song, Papa?” she asked.

  “Glory, glory, Hallelujah! His truth is marching on!” sang Papa, bringing the song to a thunderous conclusion. “Why, that’s ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic.’ It’s a wonderful song. Most inspiring.”

  “I like the hallelujahs,” said Julia. “But some of the other words are difficult. What does vintage mean? And what are grapes of wrath? Are they white or red?”

  “Red,” said Papa. “Most decidedly. You’ll understand when you’re bigger.” He was silent while he negotiated a curve, then added, “You were named for the woman who wrote that song, you know. Julia Ward Howe.”

  “I was?” Julia was tickled. “I didn’t know women could write songs.”

  “Julia Ward Howe is a fine poet and a fine patriot. You should try to emulate her, always.”

  “I will, Papa,” promised Julia. “Who’s Harriet named for?”

  Harriet was Julia’s older sister, almost ten years older and already a young lady who wore corsets and swept her long hair up in a bun on the top of her head. Julia’s hair was still short because it had been cut off when she had scarlet fever a few months earlier. She admired Harriet’s long hair, but she didn’t miss her own because it had required a hundred painful brushstrokes every morning. She hoped it would take a long time to grow back.

  “Harriet is named for Harriet Tubman,” said Papa, as they drew up in front of the big white house on Main Street that was home. “Born a slave, she was a very brave woman who helped many slaves become free.”

  Julia pursed her lips. “What’s a slave, Papa?”

  Papa’s back became straighter and his voice sterner. “A slave is a person who is owned by another person and must work for him. It’s a great evil that ended with President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.”

  “People can own other people?” Julia was intrigued with the idea. “If I had a slave, I could make her do my chores, couldn’t I? Then I’d have more time to read.”

  “And why, might I ask, should someone else do your chores for you? Are you not able to do them yourself?”

  “But I don’t like to do them,” said Julia, in a very small voice.

  “Well, that’s very naughty indeed,” said Papa, lifting her out of the car and setting her on her feet.

  Julia looked up at Papa. Her eyes went up his long woolen slacks, over his vest with the gold watch fob, all the way up to his bearded chin. “Who are you named for, Papa?”

  “For General William Tecumseh Sherman, of course.”

  Julia wanted to ask Papa who General William Tecumseh Sherman was, but he was already striding up the path to the front door. She hurried to keep up with him, but her legs were much shorter and she had to run. But no matter how hard she tried, she could never catch up. Even if she ran as fast as she could, getting out of breath. Papa was always ahead, just like General Sherman on his horse.

  She could see him, General Sherman, high above her on his beautiful horse. The general was following a woman with a gold crown who was holding a sword high above her head as a symbol of victory. He has trampled on the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored, He has loosed the fearful lightning of his terrible, swift sword, His truth is marching on.

  But now the woman had whirled around and Julia could see her face. It was Harriet. Harriet was holding the sword. It was shining and gleaming, sparks of bright light were shooting off the white blade as she swung it around, faster and faster as she ran straight for the general. His horse reared up and he fell to the ground with a horrible brainsplitting thud.

  Miss Tilley’s eyes sprang open and she saw Rachel leaning over her.

  “What happened?” Miss Tilley asked

  “The teacup broke,” said Rachel, bending down and picking up the pieces. “You must have knocked it off the table.”

  “That was a very stupid thing to do,” said Miss Tilley, with a sigh of frustration.

  Rachel smiled. “No harm done. It was just a teacup. Plenty more where it came from.”

  She patted the old woman’s hand. “Ready for your dinner?”

  “Yes, yes, I am,” said Miss Tilley, slowly rising to her feet. “Thursday, shepherd’s pie.” She paused. “Next week, let’s try something different. I’ve heard spaghetti is very tasty.”

  Rachel’s mouth dropped open in disbelief as Miss T padded off to the dining room, her shoes twinkling as she went.

  Chapter Eight

  As she walked on to Sherman Cobb’s house on Oak Street, Lucy followed Video Debbie’s advice and pulled in her tummy, tucked in her bottom and pulled herself up to her full height. It felt good, she had to admit.

  Walking was supposed to be one of the secrets of good health; it seemed that some expert was always advising Americans to walk and bicycle more. Of course, they never seemed to take into account the fact that sidewalks and bike trails were few and far between. Here in town there were sidewalks, but they ended when Main Street turned into Route 1. In theory, Lucy could have walked or bicycled into town from her house on Red Top Road, but the traffic whizzing by made it a dangerous proposition.

  Of course, before there were so many cars people had to walk more. Lucy wondered if Miss Tilley had walked a great deal when she was younger, and if it had helped her achieve her advanced age. The more she thought about it, the more she doubted it. In the twenty or more years she had known Miss T, she had never seen her walking, though she had often seen her cruising around in a massive Chrysler until an accident resulted in the revocation of her driver’s license. After that, Rachel came to the rescue, chauffeuring the old lady around town.

  A wayward spray of forsythia slapped Lucy’s shoulder and she paused for a moment, admiring an especially handsome patch of daffodils in somebody’s yard. Here spring was literally bursting out all around her and she was too busy, too lost in her own thoughts, to notice. She resolved to pay more attention. Had the robins arrived yet? She didn’t know.

  Checking each lawn she passed for robins and noting the progress of emerging hyacinths and tulips slowed her steps, but not her thoughts. For some reason, she mused, she’d been convinced that Miss Tilley had contacted Cobb about updating her will. Where had she gotten that idea? She couldn’t remember, but it was obviously wrong. Miss Tilley had made herself quite clear on the issue. She’d insisted Cobb had called her, requesting a meeting. Was it even about her will? Lucy wondered. Miss Tilley had boasted that her affairs were in satisfactory order. That didn’t sound as if she was planning any changes. So why had Sherman Cobb wanted to see her? A good-bye visit? An expression of gratitude for the old judge’s bequest? Maybe the answer would be found inside, thought Lucy, pausing in front of the modest white clapboard house with green shutters.

  Things outlast people, thought Lucy, observing that Cobb’s house looked just the same as always. You couldn’t tell by looking at it that its owner had died and would never return. The windows didn’t droop in sadness; the doorstep didn’t sag in despair. Everything remained exactly as he had left it, with the lawn neatly raked and clumps of daffodils lined up against the foundation, almost ready to bloom. The crocuses were also in bloom, fragile bursts of white and purple, but he would never see them.

  Lucy stood on the stoop outside the kitchen door, fingering the keys. This was creepy, she thought. She didn’t even know Cobb and she was about to enter his house and go through his things. The most private details of his life would be exposed to her: the unpaid bills on his
desk, his bank book and income taxes, old letters, the contents of his medicine cabinet and his laundry hamper, his address book and even his diary, if he kept one.

  Worst of all, she was kind of excited at the prospect of snooping around. It wasn’t her best trait, she admitted, remembering lonely afternoons as a child when she had peeked into her parents’ dresser drawers. She recalled slipping her hand into the pocket of her mother’s robe as it hung on the bathroom door and pulling out a strange rubber object and finally figuring out what it was—a diaphragm. Shocking proof that her parents had sex more than the one time it had taken to conceive her, their only child. She smiled at her childhood naivete and shoved the key into the lock.

  “Excuse me, miss! What are you doing?”

  Startled, Lucy whirled around and saw a man standing outside the back door of the neighboring house. He was in his sixties, rather plump, and wore his pants hitched up high on his suspenders. His plaid flannel shirt was buttoned all the way up to the neck. He hurried across the space between the two houses and was out of breath when he reached her.

  “May I ask what your business is?” he demanded, pursing his lips. He had a small mouth to begin with and the gesture made him look like a fish.

  “Mr. Cobb’s partner, Bob Goodman, asked me to take a look in the house,” she said, determined not to say too much. She had every right to be there, and it was none of the neighbor’s business. “And who are you?”

  “I’m Sidney Snell. I live in the house next door. We had an agreement to watch each other’s houses when one of us was away, take in the mail, that sort of thing. I have his keys and he has—er, had, mine.”

  Lucy held up the keys Bob had given her. “I have a set, also,” said Lucy, “so you don’t need to stay. I can manage fine on my own.”

  “Just hold on there, missy,” said Snell, pulling himself up to his full five feet and four inches. “You can’t go in there.”

  “I’ve just explained to you that I can go in,” replied Lucy, growing impatient with this nosy neighbor.

  “How do I know you’re who you say you are?” demanded Snell. “Until I hear otherwise, this house is my responsibility. Sherman Cobb was my neighbor and I’m not going to let him down.” He glared at her. “Do you have some identification?”

  This was ridiculous, thought Lucy, trying to think of a way to satisfy Snell that she was legitimate. She reached into her purse and handed him her card.

  “Lucy Stone, reporter at The Pennysaver ! I thought so! You’re just looking for a story, aren’t you?”

  Lucy shook her head. “This isn’t for the paper. Bob Goodman asked me to check the house. Why don’t you call him?” she suggested. “He’ll vouch for me.”

  “And leave you alone? You could be in and out with the silver before I got back. I don’t think so.”

  “Okay,” said Lucy, with a big sigh. “Why don’t you come in with me? That way you’ll be sure that I don’t take anything.”

  Snell considered this for a few minutes. “Okay,” he finally said. “But don’t try anything funny. My wife is home and she’s watching. Don’t you forget it.”

  Lucy saw the curtains at the kitchen window twitch. “I won’t forget it.”

  As it happened, she didn’t need the keys. Cobb had left the door unlocked, just as Bob said. She pushed open the door, then reeled back, bumping into Snell.

  “Sorry about that. Whew, something smells awful in there.”

  “Sure does,” agreed the neighbor, pulling out a handkerchief and holding it over his nose, preparing to enter the kitchen.

  Lucy pulled him back. “Hold on a minute. Maybe we ought to think about this,” she said.

  “What? First you couldn’t wait to get in; now you don’t want to because of a bad smell?”

  Unfortunately, Lucy was well aware of what bad smells sometimes indicated. Old folks who’d slipped down the cellar stairs and hadn’t been missed for days, runaway teenagers who turned up dead in the woods, wives and children killed by abusive fathers who, often as not, turned the weapon on themselves.

  “Well, this might be related. Have you ever heard of murder-suicide? Could be a second body in there—I think we should call the police.”

  Snell made his fish face again. “Let’s look first, okay? We don’t want to bother the police if it turns out to be the garbage or something.” He slapped the handkerchief over his nose and kicked the door open. “Don’t touch anything,” he added, his voice muffled by the cloth.

  Lucy followed, hoping she wasn’t walking into a gruesome scene.

  “Aha! Here’s the offender!” Snell pointed to a plate holding a greenish object covered with plastic wrap that was sitting on the counter. “Looks like a pork chop to me.”

  Now that she knew what it was, the smell didn’t seem so awful. Lucy peered at the plate.

  “Yup. Some sort of chop anyway. Probably for his supper.”

  “I’ll just take care of that,” said Snell, sliding the chop off the plate and into the garbage. “If you’ll wash that, I’ll just carry this out to the bin,” he said, tying up the plastic liner.

  Lucy squirted some soap onto a sponge and scrubbed the plate, setting it in the dish drainer next to a coffee mug, plate, juice glass and a few utensils. Looking around the kitchen, she noticed the coffeemaker’s glass carafe still contained a cup or two of coffee. On the last day of his life, Cobb had made coffee, eaten breakfast and washed the dishes.

  Glancing out the window, Lucy saw Snell fussing with the bungee cords that secured the lids on the garbage cans so dogs and raccoons couldn’t open them. Deciding to take advantage of the situation, she hurried into the next room, a combination living and dining room. It was furnished attractively in what she guessed was Ethan Allen or Thomasville, probably all purchased at the same time. Everything was coordinated. The chair fabric complemented the sofa; the trim on the lampshades matched the welting on the throw pillows. It looked like a display room in a furniture store.

  She pulled open the drawers in the end tables, finding coasters, a few decks of cards and a bridge scorecard, some stray pens and pencils. If Cobb had any dirty secrets, there was no sign of them here.

  Lucy went down the hall, studying the framed photographs that lined the walls. All were taken at various Civil War reenactments. Some were posed group shots, others were candids of men in Civil War uniforms. There were also action shots of the mock battles, which must have been the work of professional photographers.

  Three doors opened off the hallway and all stood open. The bathroom was standard, and the medicine cabinet held only the usual clutter of over-the-counter medications and Band-Aids. It could have been the medicine cabinet in her own home. The only exception was a prescription bottle of painkillers prescribed by Doc Ryder, presumably in response to Cobb’s diagnosis. Cancer could be painful, Lucy knew, but the bottle was full even though the prescription had been filled weeks earlier. Lucy thought it was safe to assume that Cobb was most likely not in pain, certainly not enough pain to drive him to suicide.

  The smaller bedroom was fitted up as a combination office and guest room with bookcases, a desk and a sleeper couch. Lucy looked longingly at the desk, which no doubt held all sorts of information, but knew she didn’t have time to look through it before Snell came back.

  In the last room, Cobb’s bed was neatly made with his slippers tucked under the side. At the sight of the fleecelined moccasins, tears sprang to Lucy’s eyes. She just knew his pajamas were neatly folded under his pillow, but she didn’t look. Instead, she peered into his closet, where she saw a collection of suits, shirts, pants and jackets hung according to category. Ties hung from a rack on the inside of the door; shoes were arranged in a rack on the floor. Unzipping a plastic garment bag, Lucy found several Civil War uniforms made of heavy blue wool, with gleaming brass buttons.

  All of a sudden, Lucy wanted to be someplace else. She didn’t think she could stand another moment in the dead man’s house. She quickly yanked the drawers open
and felt under the piles of underwear, the rolls of socks, the stacks of sweaters. There was nothing. Turning to leave, her eye was caught by a framed photo of a man and woman.

  “His mother and father,” said Snell, looking over her shoulder.

  Lucy picked it up and studied it; she’d seen similar handtinted photos of her grandparents in her parents’ house. Usually taken when a couple were married, they bore little resemblance to the subjects in later life. A much smaller, modern color photo, also framed, pictured the same pair standing behind a large cake with the number 50 on top. Their fiftieth wedding anniversary? It must be, thought Lucy, peering at the happy couple.

  “They’ve been dead for some time,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “Probably for the best.”

  As she studied them, as bright as two buttons in their matching white hair and blue eyes, Lucy nodded her head in agreement, thankful that they had gone to their rest ignorant of the fate that awaited their son.

  ‘Well, if you’ve seen enough, I’ll lock up,” said Snell, placing himself in the doorway to the den.

  Lucy looked past him to the desk. He’d never allow her to look through it.

  “I’m done for now,” she said, vowing to come back another time, when she could search unhindered.

  Lucy could feel Snell’s eyes watching her as she walked down the driveway. The good neighbor was determined to make sure she didn’t sneak back into the house to continue her search without his supervision.

  Lucy marched along, venting her frustration by taking long strides and swinging her arms. If only she’d been able to really look around the house at her leisure, she might have come up with something. At least she would have gotten a better sense of the man. All she’d really learned from her search was that he was neat and tidy and conventional.