Dying for Murder

by Suzanne F. Kingsmill

  The station was in almost total darkness, except for a nightlight in the main building and a light in the clearing where we stood. The live oaks were being pummelled by the wind overhead and somewhere something was making a rhythmic clanking noise.

  “Guess there’s no evacuation.” We said good night and I headed off to my cabin. Martha wasn’t back yet from batting and I couldn’t sleep so I was reading when she burst into the cabin about three hours later and said, “I just bumped into Darcy. We’re to be evacuated in forty minutes.” Since I didn’t have much to pack I was ready in five minutes, but Martha couldn’t decide what to take in the little bag that Darcy had said each of us could take — valuables only and one change of clothes. We’d already been briefed on where to meet. Trevor was already there and so were Wyatt and Rosemary when we arrived. The others straggled in. Darcy gave us a refresher talk and we loaded into Trevor’s van, which sat twelve uncomfortably. I was the last one in and that’s when Darcy asked where Stacey was. Nobody said anything and Darcy, who was jammed between two people, looked at me beseechingly and said, “Can you check her cabin please?” I nodded and loped down the path leading to Stacey’s cabin.

  There was a light on the porch but the cabin was in darkness. I took the two steps in one bound, called her name through the darkened screen door, and stood listening as the wind screamed overhead. It had started to rain again and I could hear it pinging on her metal roof. When she didn’t reply I figured she was sleeping and I called louder. When she still didn’t respond I opened the door and walked inside. There was a strange sweet smell to the air and I tried to remember if Stacey wore perfume. It was too dark to make out anything but big dark shapes and I fished around for a light. I found it by the door and switched it on. I saw her sitting on a chair with her back to me, her head rolled forward on her chest, sleeping. I called her name again but again there was no response. The thought occurred to me that maybe she was ill. I walked quickly around the chair so I could see her face — and wished I hadn’t. Someone had tied her legs to the chair and each of her hands to an arm, but what made me gag was the duct tape silencing her mouth and another strip blocking her nose. I stood there and stared while my mind imagined her horrible end. So lost in her tragedy was I that I didn’t hear Darcy until he was beside me.

  “Jesus,” was all he said. We stood there unable to get out of the moment that imprisoned us. If it hadn’t been for the branch of a tree crashing down on the roof we might have stayed there staring at her forever. But it jolted us out of our shock. I grabbed a corner of the duct tape and peeled it from her nose and then did the same with her mouth. Then I leaned forward and felt for a pulse, feeling guilty that I hadn’t done so right away. But there was nothing. No telltale throbbing indicating a life was still there.

  “Help me get her on the ground,” I said. “We may still be able to save her. She’s still warm.” I saw the hope creep into his face and it gave me some courage.

  I started undoing her left wrist, which was rubbed raw by the rope while Darcy took the right. They were tight slip knots and it took some loosening but we got her on the ground and began CPR.

  “Cordi, what’s wrong? What’s happened?” I looked up to see Martha standing dripping in the doorway, her lifejacket deflated around her neck, ready and waiting for a disaster on the trip to the mainland, and her camera dangling from her shoulder. How long had she been there? Long enough to see the duct tape? In that moment she looked so human, so frail, so full of hopes and dreams, just like the life I was trying to save. But Stacey’s life had run out. She was gone. It was 3:30 a.m.

  Martha had moved into the room and was standing beside me.

  “They sent me to find out what was taking you so long,” she said, her face betraying the calmness of her voice and the banality of her question in the face of what lay before us.

  “What do we do now?” asked Darcy, the hope in his face now supplanted by disbelief and something else I couldn’t quite place.

  “We evacuate,” I said.

  “But what about Stacey?”

  “Nothing we can do for her now. We’ll notify the police as soon as we get to the mainland.”

  “But she’ll, you know, in this heat.” His voice stuttered to a halt as he looked down at Stacey, now sprawled on the floor. He looked up and visibly squared his shoulders as he said; “We have to get her up to the walk-in refrigerator in the main building.” He looked from me to Martha to Stacey and added, “I’ll come with you to the compound and then Trevor and I can come back and get her up.”

  “But Trevor says it’s the last boat out,” said Martha.

  Darcy looked through her. “I can’t just leave her here all alone. It’s the least I can do for Stacey. But please don’t tell anybody. We’ll just say she’s like the captain of a sinking ship. She won’t leave.”

  Darcy moved toward the door but Martha stood transfixed and I gently took her by the arm. But she shrugged me off and said, as she unslung her camera, “This is a crime scene, Cordi, and there’s no one here to process it. I should take some pictures for the police before Darcy moves the body.”

  It hadn’t even occurred to me what a mess we’d made of this crime scene until Martha said that. “There’s no time for that,” I said, but she fired off a few shots anyway.

  We left then, shutting the screen door and the storm door tightly behind us.

  Everyone was packed into the truck like sardines and getting pretty pissed off. Our explanation didn’t allay that frustration much. They just turned it on Stacey, saying how selfish she was, and I felt badly that we were letting them make ill of the dead when they didn’t know that she was dead. But then again, somebody other than Darcy, Martha, and I knew she was dead. We squeezed into the truck and headed through the forest to the compound. Twice we had to stop and clear branches from the trail, the rain pelting us relentlessly. One of the branches was so big that Trevor had to chainsaw it in two places. It was dark in the woods but as we reached the compound we could see that dawn had come and almost gone. We were an hour late.

  We all tumbled out of the truck and followed Trevor up to the wharf. It was hard to see in the rain because the wind was picking up and throwing itself at us horizontally, but it was pretty easy to see that there was no boat at the wharf. Someone had taken it, I thought. Trevor waved us over to one of the metal outbuildings. Once we were inside he took out his cellphone and punched in a number. We all huddled around him, waiting. I was amazed that he got through in these conditions. As he clicked his cell shut it was obvious by the glum look on his face that all was not well.

  “Some islanders took the boat when we didn’t show up. They can’t come back for us,” he said. “They had a hell of a trip and no one is willing to risk it. We’re on our own.”

  Everybody began talking at once.

  “We’ll drown if we stay on the island.” Rosemary.

  “Cool.” Sam.

  “My snakes!” Melanie.

  “Who’s going to be in charge?” Darcy.

  “God damnit, I’ve got court cases I can’t miss.” David.

  “Christ. Some working holiday this turned out to be.” Wyatt.

  “Oh my god. My study site.” Jayne.

  We were a bedraggled bunch, our clothes soaked through and our hair plastered to our heads, when Trevor got us all back into the truck and we headed back the way we came through the wildly flailing branches of the trees overhead and the torrential rains. The windshield wipers weren’t fast enough to put a dent in the rain slamming against the windshield and to the swirling thoughts in my head. I couldn’t get the vision of Stacey out of my mind, her face covered in duct tape, her hands tied. Less than five hours before we had watched a sea turtle together on the beach and had connected with each other on some weird level. Who could have done such a thing and why? I looked around at my seatmates, the thought eating into me that one of them could have done it, must have done it. Or maybe one of the islanders did it.

  We all made
it back in one piece physically — emotionally I wasn’t going to hazard a guess. Before we got out of the truck into the deaf-making madness of the storm, Darcy asked us all to meet in the dining room in half an hour to discuss strategy. He then got out of the truck and headed in the direction of Stacey’s cabin.

  Martha and I made our way to our cabin. The ground was soaked and squishy and was beginning to puddle. There were twigs everywhere and I began to wonder how safe it was to stay here. We hadn’t had time to change out of our wet clothes when Darcy knocked on the door and invited himself in. It was a small cabin with three very wet people streaming water onto the floor. All I wanted to do was to get into some dry clothes and I told Darcy as much. But he didn’t seem to be listening and I got the feeling he was rehearsing what he wanted to say to us. To me, it turned out.

  “Stacey told me a bit about you,” he said.

  I looked suitably perplexed.

  “As director she has certain responsibilities and she had to vet you to make sure you were a bona fide researcher.” He laughed through his nose. “She was kind of paranoid about that.”

  When I didn’t respond — how could I? — he continued. “I’m out of my league here. I don’t know how to handle Stacey’s death — murder, I guess. Normally I’d just call the police and have them handle it but I guess that is out of the question, for the time being anyway.” He pushed some wet hair off his cheek. The cabin light flickered.

  “You’ve been involved with at least two murder investigations up in Canada, according to Stacey. I was hoping you could help me out here.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What do I do about Stacey?”

  “Call the police,” I said, knowing what was coming next.

  “I will but they can’t come over to the island until the hurricane is over. What do we do? Do we tell everybody or do we keep it a secret?”

  I wondered how carrying Stacey up the stairs to the refrigerator could be kept a secret.

  “I think we have to tell everyone,” I said.

  “They know she is here on the island,” said Martha, “and I don’t think we can keep her death a secret. And why should we?”

  “To avoid panic,” said Darcy.

  “But we don’t have to tell people she was murdered,” I said.

  Before I could say anything more he said, “I would like to ask you if you would tell people what happened and reassure them that everything is okay and to deal with the police.”

  I started to protest but he raised his hand to stop me. “You have more authority on the subject of murder than any one of us and we need someone like you right now.”

  How could I say no to that?

  chapter nine

  “Like a moth to the flame,” said Martha, as she struggled out of her wet clothes.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, knowing exactly what she was talking about.

  “Murder seems to follow you around.”

  “You can’t always choose your bedfellows,” I said. “Or are you trying to make me feel like a hex?” The light flickered again in the cabin and we looked at each other.

  “Besides, you helped solve the other murders, so I could say murder follows you around too,” I said.

  “Yeah, but I never get to find the bodies.”

  “Lucky you.” I laughed. “Do you think Duncan’s still on the island?”

  “Why?”

  “He could be a big help in processing the crime scene.”

  “Because he’s a pathologist?”

  “Precisely. He can at least establish time of death for us.”

  “Are we going to try and solve this?”

  “Why not? We have Duncan. We have you as the official photographer. We even have Sam for some simple toxicology if we need it.”

  “But the police can do all that when they come. They won’t like it if you compromise their crime scene.”

  “It’s already been compromised. Besides, they’re not the ones cooped up with a murderer.” Said that way it made me shudder.

  We finished dressing and left the cabin to meet everyone in the dining room. As we struggled up all those stairs in the driving rain I wondered how the hell we were going to get Stacey up there.

  We sat down at a table with Sam, Melanie, Wyatt, and Rosemary who were all talking about the failed evacuation and who was to blame. By the number of times Stacey’s name came up, she was to blame. She should have ordered the evacuation earlier. Darcy and Jayne arrived together, followed by David. Darcy caught my eye and nodded toward the back of the dining room.

  “What do we do about Stacey’s brother?” he asked.

  “Stacey’s brother?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Yeah, he can’t find out with everyone else. It would be cruel.”

  “I don’t follow. Who is Stacey’s brother?”

  “You don’t know?” He looked at me in surprise. “David. David is Stacey’s brother. He’s a lawyer from New England.” I thought back to the tall thin man hugging the round fat woman and marvelled at how a brother and sister could be so different.

  “You have to tell him first, before you tell everyone else.” Darcy’s voice intruded on my thoughts.

  You?

  “You mean you have to tell him.”

  “I can’t. He hates my guts. It would be unkind coming from me.”

  I looked over at David, who had taken a seat beside Jayne.

  “I’ll run interference with the crowd until you’ve told him,” said Darcy.

  I really, really did not want to do this, but Darcy had his hand on my arm and was squeezing it, definitely in supplication, and with a sinking heart I walked over to David and asked him if I could have a private word with him. I led him out into the hallway and down to the lounge. He looked at me expectantly.

  “I’m really sorry to have to tell you this, but your sister died this evening.”

  He was very still, not a flicker of emotion crossed his face. He was like an automaton. The silence lengthened between us and I tried to think of something to say.

  “How?” he finally said.

  “We won’t know that until an autopsy is performed,” I lied.

  He nodded. “Where is she?”

  “In her cabin.”

  “Is that where it happened?”

  I nodded again.

  “What are you going to do with her?” he asked in a slow even voice.

  “Pardon?” I asked, gathering my thoughts.

  “You can’t leave her like that, not in this temperature,” and he wiped his arm across his sweaty forehead to illustrate his point.

  “Darcy has made arrangements to clear out the walk-in fridge. We’ll move her up as soon as Duncan has seen her.”

  “Who the hell is Duncan?”

  “He’s a pathologist who owns a cabin on the island. He’s also a medical examiner.”

  “Is that what you are about to announce to everyone? Stacey’s death?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Thank you for telling me first.” And he left the room, just like that. I could see him walking back down the corridor to the dining room and I wondered at his strength, or was I wondering something else entirely?

  I followed him back down the hall. As we entered the room everyone fell quiet as if they knew something was afoot. Before I had a chance to sit down Darcy stood up and said, “There has been an incident at the station. I have asked Cordi to explain. She has some degree of expertise in the subject.” His stiff staccato sentences drummed in my ears. What was I going to say? Voluntarily or not, Darcy had just shown our hand. Since my expertise was in murder someone was going to put two and two together.

  I looked around the room.

  “It is with great sadness that I must inform you that Stacey has died.”

  I watched their faces, ranging from surprise to sadness to very little emotion, and I let their voices of concern wash over me until it was the right time to move on.

  “I found her earl
ier this evening in her cabin while you all waited in the truck.”

  “What happened to her?” asked Wyatt.

  “How did she die?” asked Jayne. That universal question that people instinctively want to know when they hear of a death. Is it because they can discount the death if it happened in some fashion where the deceased could be blamed? Where you then feel safe to say that couldn’t happen to me?

  “I found her collapsed in her chair.”

  “Was she ill?” Melanie asked. Everybody swung their gaze to her. “I mean, she looked ill …” she added lamely.

  “Not that I know of, except for the stomach flu,” I said.

  “Heart attack then, or maybe something else?” Jayne again.

  “Can’t tell,” I said, staying as vague as I could. I looked at Jayne closely. What something else?

  “Can’t tell or won’t tell?” said Jayne.

  I glanced over at Darcy, wondering where Jayne was going with this. But all he did was an eyebrow shrug. I was on my own.

  “Darcy told me you’re a bit of an amateur sleuth — that you have solved a couple of murders in your time,” said Jayne. I glanced at Darcy again. The eyebrow shrug was joined by a shoulder shrug.

  “Your point being?”

  “It seems weird that a complete stranger should be telling us about our esteemed director and that that stranger should have credentials in the homicide department. Coincidence? Given your credentials it just seems to follow that the big question here is: Was Stacey murdered?”

  There was a collective intake of breath from everyone in the room, including myself. What had made her think it was murder? It couldn’t just have been my reputation and Darcy’s dithering, could it? And with eight faces, each showing varying degrees of concern and fear, staring up at me, what was I going to say next? I’m sure they wondered too and could probably read it in my face. I felt like throttling Darcy but at least I hadn’t been caught out in a lie — yet. It is usually always tricky to weasel your way out of a lie. So I said what seemed right, “Yes. She was suffocated.” Plain and simple.