Blue Moon: Mundy's Landing Book Two

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  But of course, the media isn’t nearly as interested in the Bingham family as they’d been in Augusta Purcell, the only known survivor who had been in any of the three Murder Houses when the crimes occurred. Trib himself approached her for an interview many times, but she always turned him down, though more politely than she handled “outsider” reporters when they came calling.

  “When did you see this person?” Nick Colonomos asks her.

  “Last week. Wednesday, maybe? Or Thursday? It was broad daylight. I mentioned it to one of your officers.”

  “You called us?”

  “No! Nothing really happened. When I ran into Officer Greenlea the other day I told him about it, but it really didn’t seem like a big deal by then.”

  “Did you get a good look at whoever it was?”

  “No. I . . .” She almost tells him that she isn’t even entirely sure anyone was there. But she doesn’t want him to think she’s imagining things . . .

  Just in case she isn’t.

  He asks whether it was a male or female, adult or child.

  “I didn’t get a good look at all,” she tells him, shaking her head. “My eyesight isn’t exactly twenty-twenty these days.”

  “Well, if it happens again, or if you see anything unusual, call us. We’re right around the corner.”

  Wondering how he defines unusual, she eyes the people out on the sidewalk. Some are kids. Some aren’t. They all appear harmless as Disney World tourists.

  She sees the lieutenant following her gaze. “It’s a public sidewalk,” he says, almost apologetically. “Unless they’re trespassing . . .”

  “I know. It’s just hard. They’re not doing anything, but they’re staring.”

  “I’ve lived on this street for years,” Kim says, “and it was never this bad before. It’s because of that huge reward. I wish someone would solve this damned crime already and we could stop dealing with this every summer. How about it, Lieutenant?”

  “How about what?”

  “How about solving the Sleeping Beauty murders? I’m sure you could use fifty grand.”

  His smile is perfunctory. “I’m sure everyone could use fifty grand.”

  “Annabelle and I are going to work on it. Right, Annabelle?”

  “We are?”

  Kim nods. “Maybe there’s a clue in the house. We should look.”

  She’d forgotten about the stone angel. She could mention it to Kim—and to Lieutenant Colonomos. But something makes her want to keep it to herself for now. Even Trib doesn’t know.

  If he ever gets home, and we can have a real conversation, I could tell him.

  Mundypalooza is disrupting every part of her life, and that includes her marriage. Thank goodness tomorrow night is date night, none too soon.

  Holmes’s Case Notes

  In June 1916, the house at 65 Prospect Street was occupied by the esteemed obstetrician Dr. Silas Browne; his wife, Viola; their teenage sons, Benjamin and Lewis; and several servants.

  The Brownes’ vivacious and beautiful twenty-year-old daughter, Maude, was not in residence. She had gone abroad in the spring of 1915, to visit her mother’s family in England. It was not uncommon in that era for wealthy families to send their privileged daughters off to Europe. But as war escalated overseas, passenger crossings became fraught with danger, and many anxious parents deferred lavish travel for their precious offspring.

  The Brownes, however, had good reason to send Maude away. She sailed from New York a few days before the Lusitania’s fateful departure. Its sinking was disastrous for many in the Hudson Valley, but not for the Browne family. No one in Mundy’s Landing questioned why she would remain in London rather than risk a return voyage in wartime. Presumably, no one ever knew of the illegitimate son she bore that autumn.

  They had no access to the online records so easily available to me when I began my investigation.

  Maude Browne never did return to her tainted bedroom. Both her brothers enlisted and served overseas. Lewis was killed in the German trenches. Silas and Viola, shaken by their ordeals—both public and private—went abroad after the war to visit his grave, and then to see their daughter and young grandson in England. Benjamin joined them, and there the family spent the rest of their lives, an ocean away from Mundy’s Landing.

  The house stood unused and vacant until the early 1920s, when at last a willing buyer came along. Attracted to Dr. Browne’s bargain price and proximity to the railroad and river, bootlegger K. J. Jones didn’t care about the Murder House stigma.

  The place changed hands again just after the Depression, and stayed in that family for generations until Dr. Yamazaki and his wife bought it in the early 1990s. He is a plastic surgeon, not an obstetrician, but still, he is a physician just as Dr. Browne was. He has one son, not two, but his daughter is almost exactly the age Maude Brown was in 1916, and she, too, is away, leaving a vacant bedroom in her parents’ house.

  I felt as though fate had explicitly engineered the situation to suit my purposes.

  I was mistaken. Unlike the Browne family, the Yamazakis won’t wake up on June 30 to find the body of a strange young girl tucked into their daughter’s vacant bed.

  Therein lies the problem.

  Had I anticipated that they might leave, I’d have easily created some kind of deterrent. I truly believed I’d thought of everything. I am bitterly disappointed and disconcerted to find that certain circumstances are beyond my control.

  However, I shall move forward as planned.

  Chapter 13

  Thursday, June 30

  Eyes closed, Indi tries—she tries, really hard, desperately hard—to transport herself back home.

  Yes, she knows she can’t really will herself there.

  But she’s been able to get there in her head, and even if she knows it’s not real, it helps make this hellhole bearable for another minute, or two . . .

  An hour, or two . . .

  A day, or two . . .

  “How long has it been?” she asks in the dark, but Kathryn doesn’t answer. She passed out again sometime while Juanita was being brutally slaughtered directly above their heads.

  Indi heard everything, though.

  She’s been trying to transport herself home ever since. But this time she can’t conjure her room. She can’t see the glow-in-the-dark plastic constellations stuck to the ceiling over her bed and she can’t smell the hot tar wafting through the window and she can’t hear Tony snoring.

  Dammit, dammit, she can only hear Juanita sobbing, Juanita begging for her life, Juanita dying.

  Now she knows why they’re here.

  It’s not about rape, or ransom. It’s about—

  Catapulted by an explosion of sheer terror in her gut, a sob bursts from her throat.

  No, stop it. Crying won’t get you out of here.

  She swallows another sob, regaining her composure. She can cry later, when it’s all behind her and she’s safe—or when she’s not. When he comes for her.

  “Kathryn,” she says sharply, her voice echoing in the damp cell. “Kathryn, wake up.”

  “Annabelle?”

  She cries out, startled by a voice and a hand on her bare shoulder. Opening her eyes, she sees Trib standing over her.

  “Hi,” he says.

  “You’re home.”

  “You didn’t have to wait up.”

  “I guess I didn’t,” she says, stretching and sitting up on the couch. She’d started out upright, watching TV here in the back parlor. That was after Kim and Catherine left, and she’d tucked Oliver into bed, after nine o’clock.

  “What time is it?”

  “Around midnight. How was your night?”

  “I watched some reality dating show Kim told me I’d love. I didn’t. And you would have hated it. How was your day? And your night?”

  “Long. And longer.” He sits beside her, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.

  “Did you eat?”

  “No. Is there leftover pizza?”
>
  “No,” she admits. “I only got a medium, and Oliver polished off the rest before bed.”

  She’s been meaning to go to Price Chopper and stock up on groceries, but that’s yet another chore left untended while she obsesses about the Purcell family’s past.

  “I can make you an omelet,” she offers.

  Trib makes a face. He’s not a fan of eggs for breakfast, let alone a midnight supper.

  “Canned soup? Macaroni and cheese?”

  He shakes his head. “It’s too late to cook. Is there bread and peanut butter?”

  “Yes. And maybe jelly. Although . . . maybe not.”

  He nods, not moving, eyes still closed. “Good. I’ll go make a sandwich in a second.”

  She could go make it for him. He’d do it for her, if the tables were turned.

  But I’m exhausted, too, she thinks as a yawn overtakes her right on cue.

  “You should have gone up to bed, Annabelle.”

  “I just wanted to make sure you got home okay.”

  “My office is a few blocks away.”

  “No, I know, but . . . it’s been a weird night.”

  He lifts her head to look at her, concerned. “Weird, how?”

  She tells him about the burglar alarms going off at the other two Murder Houses. But of course, he already knows that. It’s news, and he does work at the newspaper.

  “It’s just kids fooling around.”

  “That’s exactly what Nick Colonomos said. I hope he’s right. He said he’ll make sure officers patrol our house over the next week or two, just to keep an eye on things.”

  “That’s good. And there’s no crowd out in front right now. The whole neighborhood is quiet.”

  “Really? Where did everyone go?”

  “Probably to the concert at the bandstand in the Common. Now they’re all at the Windmill.”

  She yawns again. “That’s good. But they’ll be back. Promise me you’ll help me cover the windows tomorrow morning, okay?”

  He sighs. “Yeah. I promise.”

  “And Trib?”

  “Mmm hmm?”

  She was going to tell him about the stone angel, but his head is back again, eyes closed.

  It can wait until tomorrow. Maybe by then, she’ll have heard back from Lester. When she checked her e-mail before turning on the television, he still hadn’t replied. That’s probably for the best. She’s no longer sure how much she’s willing to share with him now that Ora advised her not to mention it.

  She reaches out and rubs Trib’s shoulder, feeling the knots. “You’re so stressed. Why don’t you come up to bed with me? I can give you a massage.”

  “You need a massage yourself. I saw all those empty boxes out back by the garbage. You did a lot of unpacking. It’s really starting to feel like home, isn’t it?”

  She considers the question. She doesn’t want to admit that after Nick Colonomos left, she’d felt overwhelmed by the house and all its baggage. They already had enough of their own. Her first glass of wine went down too quickly and led to a second, which led to her telling Kim they’d made a huge mistake, buying this place.

  Kim, who works part-time as a medical office biller, assumed she meant a financial mistake and promptly said, “I can talk to my boss. He’s looking for temporary help to cover the phones when people are on vacation this summer.”

  “I can’t do that—I have Oliver home.”

  “It’s part-time. He’s old enough to stay by himself for a few hours.”

  “You won’t even let Catherine stay alone and she’s thirteen,” Annabelle pointed out.

  “But that’s different. She’s a girl.”

  “Girls are more mature.”

  “They’re also more vulnerable,” Kim said with a shrug. “In Mundy’s Landing, anyway. But listen, if you wanted to start working part-time, I could let Catherine come over here and watch Oliver. It would keep them both out of trouble.”

  “How is it okay for her to babysit another child but not stay home alone?”

  “Safety in numbers, right? Brianna was alone when she was abducted.”

  “You’ve got to stop dwelling on that, Kim. It’s over. The killer’s not going to harm anyone else.”

  “That doesn’t mean there aren’t others out there. Other girls have gone missing in the Hudson Valley recently. I saw a couple of fliers in town. I can’t help it, Annabelle. I’m just worried about my child.”

  Aren’t we all, she thought grimly.

  Déjà vu seeps in as Holmes creeps through the night toward 65 Prospect Street. He listens to the crickets, breathes the earthy scent of wet grass and night crawlers, sees that distinct gambrel roof looming in the trees, and it’s all so familiar.

  He isn’t merely imagining the wee hours of a Friday morning in 1916; he’s remembering. Because he really was here.

  It was much darker then; the moon was new. Tonight, it’s a waning crescent set in a night sky that reminds him of sequin-studded blue-black satin.

  “See? Already it wasn’t going to be exactly the same,” he mutters to himself. “You can’t have everything.”

  He could have chosen to wait for the new moon, but then the dates would not have matched.

  He moves forward step by step, struggling with the foibles inherent in this plan as much as with the burden of the bulky blue tarp in his arms.

  For months, he’s been lifting weights in preparation to carry his Beauties on their final journey. He’s in peak physical condition. But she’s heavier than he expected, and the distance is farther than it seemed on his empty-handed trial runs.

  Maybe it’s a sign. Maybe he should just—

  No. You won’t get this chance again. Not for another hundred years.

  And everything else, every painstaking detail, is in place.

  He’d parked around the corner in the large driveway behind a mansion that was converted to several apartments. He’s been doing that for a while now, sometimes leaving it there overnight, so that the people who live there will get accustomed to seeing it and assume it belongs to one of the other residents or to a regular visitor. Residents of The Heights—even the renters—tend to get touchy about parking once Mundypalooza rolls around. If someone were to spot an unfamiliar vehicle on private property tonight, they might call the police.

  The deep lot behind the apartment house backs up to the Yamazakis’ property, the rear of which is bordered by a wooden stockade fence. With a low grunt, he reaches up and heaves the tarp over the top. He hears it thud to the ground on the other side, quite literally a dead weight.

  He easily lifts himself up and over the tall fence—not bad for someone who was once ridiculed for being incapable of doing a single pull-up in gym class. Holmes has often wondered what ever became of the phys ed teacher who was little more than an overgrown bully. Until now, he’s been too busy to hunt him down. But maybe when this is over, and he’ll find him and pay a visit.

  He picks up the bundle again, pushing his way through the wooded part of the property. Now he has to cross a stretch of open lawn.

  Three sets of French doors open onto the wide stone patio that runs across the back of the house. The carefully landscaped yard is dotted with spotlights that illuminate garden beds and specimen plantings. But leafy limbs shroud the view from neighboring windows, and there are no motion sensors or cameras in the yard.

  The home security system is relatively outdated, limited to the doors and windows. When the alarm is tripped, an alert is sent to the monitoring company, who then alert the local police, who have, by now, had their fill with answering false alarms at 65 Prospect and 19 Schuyler.

  Thanks to me.

  This is it.

  The time has come.

  Holmes musters his strength and dashes across the yard.

  He drops his burden beside the French doors that lie closest to the back stairway off the kitchen. It opens just across the hall from the room where S.B.K. left the first Sleeping Beauty one hundred years ago. Holmes is ce
rtain of that, having studied crime scene photos and police records.

  Today, the bedroom is occupied by Evelyn Yamazaki, who attends Stanford University and stayed in California for the summer, leaving the room vacant, just as Maude Browne had done a century ago.

  Inside the house, the Akita is barking. Holmes anticipated that, and he’s prepared. In his pocket is a weapon chosen specifically for the occasion.

  It isn’t the razor, or his pistol. It’s a large raw steak.

  Unlike H. H. Holmes, who tortured animals, he would never choose to harm a pup. Sherlock, who’d had a childhood hound named Redbeard, was quite fond of them. In the mystery tale “Silver Blaze,” the detective used his knowledge of canine behavior to deduce that the killer couldn’t have been a stranger, because the dog hadn’t barked.

  Holmes never had a pet himself, but he familiarized himself with characteristics of the Akita breed during the research phase of this plan. They’re not vicious guard dogs. Unlike other large breeds that will attack a stranger on sight, Akitas tolerate unfamiliar humans as long as they pose no threat.

  They’re also known to be receptive to bribes. Holmes will attain this dog’s silent cooperation by offering the choice hunk of meat. If that doesn’t work . . .

  Well, there’s always the razor. Or the pistol. But he hopes it doesn’t come to that; really, he does. It would be such a pity if Holmes were forced to harm an innocent creature.

  “Oliver . . .” Annabelle calls, finding his bed empty in the night. “Where are you?”

  Seized by panic, she looks around the room. No sign of him.

  She lifts the plaid comforter, certain he must be hiding underneath it, but he isn’t. Looking around, she sees that the windows are bare. Beyond the glass, she can see a big full moon and stars . . . so many stars, shooting stars trailing effervescence across the sky.

  It’s a beautiful summer night.