“And that’s more than enough for one day, thank you,” he said, looking at himself in the rearview mirror of the police car he was driving. He looked back with a wry expression. “And to think I accepted this job to find a little peace and quiet. Wrong again.” He caught sight of a gigantic fluffy pink tube out of the corner of his eye and slowed the car to see just what it was supposed to represent. The tall person carrying this strange object had scraggly hair pouring over his shoulders, shredded jeans, and, surprisingly, a short white jacket and a white top hat just like the ones worn by dancers in movies of the thirties. There were black diamonds drawn around his eyes. (Brett knew it was a boy; apparently the costume was complete without a shirt.) Upon closer look, he saw that the pink thing was a stuffed snake. He had opened his mouth to speak when he realized that he knew this particular child.
And from the shy smile on the boy’s face, he suspected the recognition was mutual. But was it possible that Chad Henshaw had grown so much in four years? Brett, unmarried, had limited experience with which to judge children. Chad had been a perky ten-year-old when he last saw him … and it looked like now he had become a teenager, complete with long black hair and torn jeans. Unless … He pulled over to the curb and stopped the car.
“Hi Remember me?” The boy pulled his bangs up and off his face, revealing stray wisps of a lighter-color hair underneath. “It’s a wig.”
“Hop in.” Brett leaned over and opened the door. “I’ll give you a ride home. You are going home, aren’t you? I seem to remember this as being the way to your house.”
Chad looked a bit hesitant.
“It’s okay,” Brett assured him, realizing that the teen might feel less than comfortable if seen riding home from school in a police car. “In that getup no one will recognize you.
“Just what … who are you supposed to be?” he asked as the car door slammed.
“Alice Cooper. Don’t you recognize me? Everyone in school recognized me right away.”
Brett chuckled. “I see the resemblance now, but, to be honest, I always thought of Alice Cooper with a guillotine, not a pink snake.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty dumb, isn’t it?” The boy kicked at the pink fluff that he had dumped by his feet. “One of Chrissy’s boyfriends won it for her on the boardwalk at Coney Island last summer. I was going to have a real snake. One of the kids in my class has a boa constrictor for a pet—it’s really neat, but a teacher got wind of the whole thing and stopped it. We’re not allowed to have pets in school was what the principal said.”
“You don’t think that’s fair?” Brett was amused at the vehemence of the statement.
“We have a biology lab full of animals: gerbils, mice, rats, garter snakes, and I don’t know what else. I don’t see what harm it would have been for me to have a snake for a day. And, besides …”
“Besides?” Brett urged him to continue.
“Well, it’s just that I told Tiffany Parker that I was going to have a real boa constrictor at Halloween. She’s never going to believe anything I say again.” He kicked the fake in despair.
“Can’t you trick-or-treat with the real thing over at her house tonight?”
“Only if it isn’t too cold. Snakes don’t like the cold, so I promised my friend that I wouldn’t take Julius out if it got chilly.”
“Julius?”
“Julius Squeezer. The snake’s name. Dumb, isn’t it?”
“A little precious,” the policeman conceded.
“Why are you here?” Chad asked after a short silence.
“I’m the new police chief.” Didn’t anyone in this town know—or care—who its officials were?
“You are? Hey, that’s neat!”
Brett smiled at the approval. This is the way he had envisioned working in a small suburb: getting to know the population, being there for them when they were in need, developing relationships with the children and teens.… His smile turned to a frown as he remembered that reality included two murders in one day.
“What’s wrong?”
Brett gave him a brief rundown of events.
“And my mother was on the scene as usual” was the boy’s only comment.
“True.” Brett glanced at him. “She’s a wonderful witness, you know.”
“She thinks she’s a detective,” the boy said sullenly. “It’s embarrassing. She and Mrs. Gordon are always getting together and solving these crimes.…” He seemed to be getting more depressed the more he thought about it, until … “You would think that Mrs. Gordon would be too busy to help now that she’s a mother, but the two of them will just ignore their families and pretend they’re Cagney and Lacey.”
“Mrs. Gordon?”
“Sure. Kathleen Gordon. She used to be a detective with you, didn’t she? Back when you came to town years ago? She’s married now. And she had a baby last year. A little boy with big eyes and almost black hair—he laughs every time he sees me. He’s my first fan. I’m going to be a rock singer when I grow up, you know.”
“No, I didn’t,” Brett replied absently. He remembered back when he had worked with Kathleen. Dedicated, hardworking, beautiful with long legs and long hair … And now a housewife with a baby, he reminded himself. She had probably cut her hair into a style “easier” to manage and gained weight, and, anyway, she was married.
“Hey, this is my house, remember?”
Brett looked up at the brick drive leading to the large colonial that he did, in fact, remember. “Think your mother would have a cup of coffee handy?”
“My mother? We call her the caffeine fiend. There’s always a pot ready. Come on.” And he got out of the car and led the way to the front door.
Brett followed him into the hall, where the pink snake clashed with a large glazed basket of treats, dumping it onto the thick carpeting.
“Oh, damn!” Chad threw the fake animal ahead of him into the living room and stopped to pick up the mess.
“Let me help,” Brett offered, being careful not to step on any of the miniature candy bars as he stooped down. “Lucky your mother likes candy that’s well wrapped,” he commented, tossing six Nestlé Crunch bars into the basket and one into his mouth. “When I was a kid, we used to give out little bags of home-popped corn. That stuff really made a mess.”
“Yeah. But with all the stories in the papers and on TV about people sticking pins and poison into candy bars that they pass out, no one gives away that stuff anymore.”
Of course not, Brett thought to himself. Some police chief I am. I’ve spent so much time worrying about drug traffic and felonies that I’ve lost touch with the average citizen’s concerns. “Stupid of me,” he admitted to Chad.
“You better not be eating all of that You know Mother will be furious if there isn’t enough for the trick or treaters tonight.” A voice appeared in the air above them. “And you should tell your friend, Chad, that it is illegal to impersonate a police officer.”
Brett looked up the elegant staircase at a lovely, blond teenage girl. A very embarrassed teenage girl, as she recognized that her brother’s companion was an adult. “Is something wrong, Officer?” She gathered together her wits and managed to ask the question with admirable aplomb. “I … I didn’t know … I thought you were a trick or treater …”
“That’s a perfectly normal assumption to make. After all, it is Halloween, Chrissy.” He smiled. “You don’t remember me?”
“You’re the policeman … I mean the detective who was here when all those PTA mothers were killed, aren’t you?” She was scarlet, but she walked down the stairs to shake hands.
“Got it in one,” he agreed. “It is good to see you again.” She had become a beautiful young lady, but Brett knew better than to embarrass her by mentioning it. He shook her hand. “Your brother promised me a cup of coffee.…”
“He’s the new police chief, Chrissy.”
That didn’t explain why he was standing in their hall, but the girl took it in stride. “Then why don’t you both go into the li
ving room, and I’ll get it.”
“Okay. Get me a grape soda while you’re at it,” Chad ordered, pulling off his wig and throwing it down on the small table that held the basket of candy. “We’ll wait.” He led the way to the living room, oblivious of his sister’s glare.
As Chrissy headed to the back of the house, presumably to get the required drinks, a phone rang in the distance.
“That’s my line.” Chad leapt to his feet. “I’ll …” He stopped and looked at the policeman.
“Go ahead and answer your phone.”
Chad responded to the suggestion by getting to the doorway before the ringing stopped. Brett stood up and wandered around the attractive room. A handmade basket was sitting in front of the fireplace with a strip of elaborately patterned knitting in a striking silk yam hanging over the side. He flopped down in a comfortable lawson chair, hitting something propped by its side with his arm. He bent over and picked up a flat loom with what appeared to be a spider woven into the middle of it. Or was it a sea urchin?
“That’s my latest project. I’m taking a class in tapestry weaving at an art school nearby.”
Brett stood up as Susan entered the room. “I gave Chad a ride home from school. And he offered me some coffee.” He felt it necessary to explain. Why was he here anyway? There was a murderer loose somewhere. He should be out leading the investigation, and here he was, waiting for coffee like some cop on a bad TV show. “There’s been another murder,” he went on, as though that were an explanation for his presence.
“Who … ?”
“Jason Armstrong—you know, the host of that morning show …”
“Jason …” Susan sat down on the couch. “That’s really strange, you know. His wife was at the library this morning. I talked to her.”
“His wife …”
“Rebecca Armstrong. The cohost of the show. The same show her husband is on,” Susan explained. “You don’t know who I’m talking about, do you?”
“I don’t watch TV in the morning,” he admitted. “And I don’t think I interviewed her. There were three groups doing interviews. I just spoke with the people most likely to be directly involved.”
“You would remember her. She’s a beautiful redhead.”
He thought back through those he had seen. “I don’t remember any beautiful redheads.” He paused. “I better skip that coffee and get back to my car and call in. Rebecca Armstrong probably knows that her husband is dead by this time. I think I’m going to be meeting her.”
Susan walked him to the door. “If there’s anything I can do …” she offered, not really knowing what she could do but feeling that she should say something.
He was already thinking of other things. “No, but thanks. I’ll call,” he promised vaguely as he left.
But Susan didn’t know what he would call about. She wandered back to the living room and picked up the loom that he had again dislodged when he stood. It wasn’t a spider or a sea urchin; it was a misshapen pine tree blowing in the wind, or it would be if she had any talent at all. She tucked it out of sight. Maybe she’d take a different class after Christmas; tapestry weaving didn’t seem to be her thing.
She was thinking about the dead man when her daughter entered the room. “What is all that?” she asked, seeing the large tray Chrissy was carrying.
“Where’s Detective Fortesque?” Chrissy answered, ignoring the question.
“He had to leave. What is all that?” she repeated.
“Coffee. Cream. Sugar. Cake. Soda for Chad.”
“Chrissy, how nice of you! But Brett had to leave. There’s been another murder …”
“Another murder … I didn’t know there had been one murder.” Chrissy put the tray down on the coffee table with a clunk.
“Oh, I’m sorry, honey. There was a body found at the public library this morning and …”
“But I was at the library this morning!”
“You were at school this morning,” her mother corrected her.
“No, I was at the library. My adviser was having a hard time finding the college catalogs that I wanted because so many have been snitched from the school library, and so he went over to the public library to borrow some from their collection. I had a free period, so I went with him. He let me bring home Sarah Lawrence and Rhode Island School of Design since I helped. So I was at the library—right before it opened,” she added when her mother didn’t reply immediately. “It was really strange. The man that’s there … you know who I mean …”
“Are you talking about Mr. Grace?”
“Yes. Well, he was on the phone when we got there, and he was angry. He was saying something about being disappointed in the person on the other end of the line and how he really felt that he had been led to believe something else. He was practically yelling.”
“Really?” Susan absently took a sip of soda. “Did he say anything to you? Explain the call in any way?”
“No. He looked pretty embarrassed. Well, he would be, wouldn’t he? He put his hand over the receiver and told us where the catalogs were and said he would be with us in a few minutes.”
“And was he?”
“Oh yes. The catalogs were waiting on the reference librarian’s desk—the one that’s right next to the stacks—and we were just beginning to look through the first pile when he appeared.”
“Then just a few minutes had passed.”
“Yes.”
“Did he try to explain the call?”
“Yes. And it was a little strange, too.”
“Strange? In what way?”
“I’m not sure what his exact words were, but he said something about some patrons being more excitable than others—which didn’t make any sense!”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. But I had a hard time believing that it was a library user on the other end of the line. And why would he yell at a patron?”
Susan wondered briefly about Charles Grace’s marital status. She would have to find out about that.… But her daughter was talking.
“You are going to tell me who was killed, aren’t you? Maybe it was the person on the other end of the line this morning. Maybe she came with a gun to kill him, and he grabbed it to protect himself and shot her first.”
“That might have happened except that the body in the library was a man’s, and he was stabbed. It wasn’t Charles Grace. I don’t know who he was. I don’t even think the police know his identity.”
“You said something about another murder,” her daughter reminded her.
“Yes. Jason Armstrong was found dead this afternoon—but I don’t know anything else about that,” she added as her daughter started to ask questions.
Chrissy stuck her finger in the cream-cheese frosting on the carrot cake she had brought. “Jason Armstrong is a hunk,” she declared, licking off the luscious topping. “A bunch of us were talking about him at school the other day, and we were wondering why he married someone so much older than he is.”
“So much old—” Susan gulped and stared at her daughter. Is this the way the girl and her friends characterized the very beautiful Rebecca Armstrong?
“Mother, his wife must be at least thirty-five years old. And Jason just graduated from University of Chicago two years ago.”
“How do you know so much?”
“Mother, everyone knows that! It’s in all the magazines and the newspapers. When they got married, she was called a cradle snatcher.”
“By whom?”
“It was the headline in one of those newspapers at the grocery checkout.” She had the grace to look embarrassed.
“Well, Chrissy …”
“I know,” the girl interrupted. “But it is true that she must be a good ten years older than her husband. And he is fabulous-looking, and bright, and he must make a fortune. He could have had any girl he chose.”
“Well, he chose Rebecca.”
“And she killed him because he was getting bored with her and starting to look at younger
women.” Chrissy seemed sure of her facts.
“Chrissy, no one knows who killed him, but you do know how murders are—everyone will have his or her own theory, and if we aren’t careful what we say, innocent people might be hurt.”
Chrissy, a remarkably polite seventeen-year-old, could barely resist rolling her eyes heavenward. “So why are you involved?”
“I’m not. Not at all. I just happened to find the … the body of the man in the library.” She didn’t have to wait very long for the reaction she was anticipating.
“Mother, how could you?” Chrissy wailed. “I’m busy applying to colleges. I still have to take my last SATs. My history teacher is driving me crazy. And you get involved in another murder. Your timing is terrible.” She swung her hair over her shoulder and fled from the room.
Susan sighed and cut herself a piece of cake, but the doorbell rang before she could eat it. She hurried to the hall, grabbing the basket of candy with her left hand and opening the door with her right. The cries of excited children greeted her appearance.
“Trick or treat, smell my feet, and give me something good to eat,” they shouted.
Susan passed the basket at this tasteful rhyme, commented on a few of the more clever costumes, smiled politely, and closed the door.
“What’s Chrissy so upset about?” Chad asked, appearing behind her.
“Where have you been?” his mother asked, ignoring his question.
“On the phone. Did you know that there’s been an arrest in the murder at the library?”
“No. Who … ?”
All Hallows Evil Page 3
