A Holly, Jolly Murder (8 page)

“That's not how you described it this afternoon,” I said. “What happened to the pagan songs and tankards of mead?”

“I did everything I could to create a festive air, but it was almost impossible. I'd just proposed a toast to the rebirth of the Earth Goddess when Nicholas made his announcement. After that, I'm sorry to say, there was no hope that any of us could maintain even a facade of gaiety. Harsh words were exchanged. Fern was in tears as I helped her out to the car, and Sullivan drove away with so much fury that we were left in a cloud of dust. It was very inconsiderate of him.”

“What did Nicholas say to upset your happy little grove?” I asked.

Malthea took a tissue out of her pocket and touched it to the corner of her eye. “Nicholas told us that he'd made arrangements to put all of his property, including Primrose Hill and his rental holdings, on the market. He'd decided to move to Wales and continue his genealogical efforts to trace his lineage back to the Celtic Druids at the dawning of the Christian era.”

I thought for a minute. “You, Fern, and the Sullivans were renters. What about Gilda and Roy's family?”

“Gilda rents her trailer from the man who manages the park. I'm not sure about the Tates, but I suspect not. Their home is in a lovely neighborhood. Nicholas's properties are of a lesser quality and rented primarily to students, with the exception of a few retirees such as myself and Fern.”

“I can understand why those of you paying minimal rent might be perturbed, but surely not to the extent of harsh words, tears, and abrupt departures,” I said. “Farberville has a goodly number of low-income rental properties. Moving might be inconvenient and the rent might increase, but still…”

Malthea rose and crossed the room to look out the window at the dark street. “The Sacred Grove of Keltria is very dear to me, as are its members. I've always considered us to be a spiritual family, and assumed Nicholas felt the same way. He was so brusque last night, so uncaring. He refused to discuss it further and said we had thirty days to vacate the property. When Fern tried to convince him to reconsider, he ordered all of us to leave.”

“Even Roy?”

“He said that suitable arrangements would be made,” she said, not turning.

I could see her face reflected in the windowpane. Rather than sad or even distressed, she seemed to be battling to suppress an anger that might have rivaled Nicholas's purported display the previous evening. Her eyes were narrowed, her lips squeezed together, and her cheeks flushed. I could easily imagine her at the stone altar in the grove, intoning an ancient prayer as she raised a dagger above a sacrificial victim.

Neither of us had moved when Fern opened the front door and came into the room. She stared at me for a paralytic moment, then swallowed and said, “I didn't realize you had company, Malthea.”

Malthea's shoulders relaxed, and her expression was cordial as she turned around. “Claire came by to discuss how best to deal with the problem.”

“She did?” said Fern. She put her hand on her face to conceal her mouth from my view and mutely communicated something.

“Frankly,” Malthea said as she came to the sofa and took my cup and saucer out of my hand, “there's nothing any of us can do. The police are searching for Roy. He can't go too far without transportation, and I should think he'll turn himself in rather than sleep outside.”

Fern began to twist her bony hands, squeezing the blood out of her fingers. “Don't let us detain you, Claire.”

“Thank you for dropping by,” added Malthea, conveniently forgetting who'd issued the directive.

Five minutes earlier I would have chewed off my leg to escape, but the scenario had taken a peculiar direction and I was tempted to resist being dismissed like a chastised child. However, I picked up my purse, nodded, and went out onto the porch. I hesitated, but when no one opened the door and begged me to come back inside, I continued out to my car. Curiosity may have been gnawing at me, but I told myself it was more likely to be the combined effects of inadequate sleep and an empty stomach.

As I pulled away from the curb, two figures emerged from Malthea's side of the duplex. By the time I'd turned the corner, they had scurried into Fern's side. I slowed down, then caved in and parked the car. Mindful of the irregularities in the sidewalk, I cautiously approached the duplex and went across the yard in hopes I could see Malthea and Fern in the living room.

The drapes were drawn, and there were no telltale shadows. From one of the nearby houses I could hear a television blaring, and in the distance, a baby crying. There was no indication of any kind of activity, nefarious or innocuous, in Fern's apartment. She'd been agitated, though, and dismayed by my presence. Why?

I eased into the side yard and found yet another set of closed drapes. A thorny branch raked my hand as I tried to move closer to the window, underscoring the folly of allowing my overly active imagination to stifle my common sense.

I resisted the impulse to dive into the rosebushes as a car drove by, and instead dropped to my knees and turned my face away from the glare of the headlights. Once the car had passed, I arose and continued toward the back of the duplex, hoping to see them through a kitchen window.

Away from the glow of the streetlight, the only illumination came from a curtained window in the house next door. I felt my way toward a particularly impenetrable shadow that proved to be a high wooden fence. I was groping for a gate when I heard a door open and Malthea say, “How did he get here?”

“I have no idea,” answered Fern, “and I must say I was not pleased to find him under the potting table. I like to keep everything arranged in a logical order so that I can easily put my hands on whatever I need. He's moved several stacks of flowerpots and pushed the bag of sphagnum moss against the wall. I do not look forward to having to crawl under the table to retrieve it.”

I had a fairly good idea who was under the potting table, but I wasn't sure what to do. If I returned to my car and drove to a telephone to call the police, Roy might be long gone before they arrived. And turning him in wasn't necessarily the right thing to do. He'd been frightened when Corporal Billsby appeared at his door, and he'd certainly behaved suspiciously by climbing out the bathroom window, but as far as I knew he hadn't been charged with anything. If in fact he had, Fern and Malthea could be charged with harboring a fugitive. I had no desire to find myself in a courtroom, testifying against elderly ladies. Peter would not be amused when he saw the headline:
BOOKSELLER IMPLICATED IN DRUID CRIME SPREE
.

Perhaps I could persuade Roy to turn himself in, I thought as I gave up trying to find a gate and headed toward the front of the house to determine if I could go through Fern's apartment. I'd reached the edge of the porch when I saw two dark figures advancing toward me.

“Hold it right there!” one of them said in a decidedly unfriendly voice.

“Keep your hands where we can see them,” said the other. His voice, although no doubt meant to sound equally menacing, ended with a squeak.

I noted the light glinting off both their weapons and their badges, so rather than swoon or bolt for the bushes, I said, “Do we have a problem, officers?”

“I don't know what you have, lady, but we had a call about a burglary in progress.”

“In this neighborhood?” I said skeptically. “Is someone stealing beer cans out of garbage bags?”

The officers considered this for a moment, then lowered their weapons and gestured for me to move into the light. Neither was familiar, which I found heartening; I'd experienced entirely too much of Corporal Billsby's charm at various moments during the day—and it was feasible he would seize upon the most feeble of excuses to shoot me.

“Let's see some ID,” Squeaky demanded.

“My purse is in my car,” I said. “I'd like to add that I came here at a friend's behest. She lives in there.”

“So why are you prowling around in the yard?” he countered.

“I am not prowling,” I said.

“Look,” said his partner, “the lady who lives in the next house saw you go by her window. According to her, you were prowling. Maybe you'd better explain why you went to visit your friend who lives there”—he jabbed his finger at Malthea's door—“and ended up out here in the dark. Maybe you were checking to see if the windows were locked in case you wanted to come back later.”

I plucked a dried leaf off my jacket while I tried to decide how much of the truth I was willing to relate. “As I was driving away, I realized I had something else to tell my friend. She was not in her half of the duplex, so I assumed she and her next-door neighbor were in the greenhouse in the backyard.”

Squeaky leaped on this tidbit as though it were a morsel of ripe cheese. “And you thought you'd break in and make off with her grocery money! I think we'd better take you down to the station and hear more of your fascinating story.”

“Sergeant Jorgeson isn't going to like that,” I said.

“Why not?”

It was time for a brief moment in the confessional before I was faced with a long moment in a cell. “He's eager to interview a possible witness in a murder that took place early this morning. The witness, Roy Tate, is in the greenhouse, too. Why don't I wait here while you fetch him, and then we'll all go to the station together? If you'd like to stop for doughnuts on the way, I'll pay for them. Better yet, let's order a pizza.”

The officers looked at each other. “I guess it can't hurt to see who's out there,” Squeaky said at last. “You aren't gonna wait here, though. Show us how to get to this greenhouse.”

I led the way to Fern's front door. It was not locked, so we proceeded through the cluttered living room. As we went into the kitchen, I nearly tripped over the sill as I saw Malthea seated at a small table and Fern taking porcelain cups out of a cabinet.

“Goodness gracious!” said Malthea, although her performance was less than convincing. “I thought you'd gone home, Claire.”

“Who are those men?” asked Fern. “Did you let them into my house? Why would you…? Oh dear, Malthea, they're policemen.”

Malthea cocked her head and gave them a beady look. “You really must explain this, gentlemen. This is a private residence, and unless you have a search warrant, you have no right to barge in like this.”

“She,” Squeaky said, pointing at me, “claims there's a fugitive hiding in the greenhouse out back. You'd better show me where it is.”

“A fugitive?” repeated Malthea. “What a quaint notion. Fern and I were out there only minutes ago, and we saw no one.”

I shook my head. “Sorry, but I heard you and Fern talking about Roy Tate's unauthorized presence in the greenhouse. He needs to stop being foolish and cooperate with the police. If it turns out that he needs a lawyer, I'll make sure he gets one who's had some experience.”

Malthea stood up and gestured dramatically at the back door. “Officers, go see for yourselves that there is no one in the greenhouse. Fern discovered a stray dog earlier in the evening, and asked me to accompany her to make sure the creature had not returned.”

The two policemen dutifully went through the door. Malthea, Fern, and I waited in stony silence. I mentally reviewed the snippet of conversation I'd overheard and concluded that Roy—or someone else, albeit unlikely—had been in the greenhouse. It was clear from their demeanor that whoever it had been was gone by now.

“No sign of anybody,” Squeaky said as he and his partner came back into the kitchen. “We're going. Lady, stay out of other people's yards—okay?”

Fern managed to step on my toes as she went past me to escort the policemen to the front door. I looked down at Malthea, who was celebrating her minor victory with a contented smile.

“Roy was here,” I said coldly.

“Only if he's reverted to a past life and taken the form of a large yellow dog,” she said. “I was an eagle once, and what a lovely life it was. Soaring in the sky, swooping down on unsuspecting rodents and sinking my talons into warm flesh—”

“Did you give Roy money?”

Malthea's smile widened. “To buy dog biscuits?”

“If you know where he is, you need to convince him to call Sergeant Jorgeson at the police station and arrange to be picked up. Otherwise, Jorgeson will have no difficulty obtaining an arrest warrant and putting out an APB.”

“Roy is a child.”

“No, he's not,” I replied levelly. “He's old enough to be tried as an adult and sentenced accordingly—if he killed Nicholas. His behavior certainly suggests it.”

Fern came back into the kitchen. “Claire, in the future I'd appreciate it if you do not bring men into my home without my permission. It endangers my reputation in the community.”

I threw up my hands, literally as well as figuratively, and stomped out of the duplex and down the sidewalk to my car. I knew what I'd heard, and it wasn't a discussion about a yellow dog. Roy Tate had taken refuge in Fern's greenhouse. My exchange with Officers Unfriendly and Squeaky must have carried to the backyard and sent Roy over the fence.

Scowling, I yanked open the car door and settled myself behind the wheel. As I reached for my purse to retrieve the car key, a male voice (neither squeaky nor unfriendly) said, “I gotta talk to you.”

“Talk to me about what, Roy?” I said, annoyed with myself for not checking the backseat before I got in the car. It was something I always did, except, of course, when I'd been jerked around by a couple of gray-haired Druids.

“Start driving.”

“Driving where?”

Roy breathed heavily for a moment. “I don't know. Just drive around and keep both hands on the steering wheel.”

“And if I don't?” I said.

“I have a gun, Mrs. Malloy. I don't want to use it, but I'm in such deep shit already that it probably doesn't matter what I do.” He thumped the back of my seat hard enough to rattle my teeth. “Let's go!”

I couldn't see him in the rearview mirror, so I had no idea if he was bluffing or not. It did not seem wise to press the issue. I pulled away from the curb and drove in the general direction of Thurber Street, where there might be a few cars and pedestrians. Roy had said he'd moved to Farberville only a few months earlier, so he might not have been aware that we were also headed in the direction of the police station.

“About last night,” Roy began, cleared his throat, and tried again. “You seem to have some inside edge with the cops. If I tell you what really happened, maybe you can explain it to them. I could tell from the way they were looking at me this morning that they think I'm some kind of psychopath who'd decapitate his grandmother for the price of a hamburger. I wouldn't be surprised if they dug up the flower beds at my father's house today in search of graves.”

His supposition was likely to be accurate, but I saw no advantage in saying so. “Tell me what happened, Roy.”

“Nicholas got pissed and yelled at everybody to get out of his house. Everybody did. I went up to my apartment, stuck a frozen dinner in the oven, and turned on some music. Around midnight, Nicholas knocked on my door and asked me to go back to the house with him. He was acting real odd, grinning at me and patting me on the back like I had colic. I could smell booze on his breath. I should have refused, but I was hoping maybe he'd changed his mind about selling all his properties. Living in the carriage house was a lot better than sharing a crappy little bedroom at the Sawyers' dump. Sullivan's a tight-ass, and Morning Rose fixes these weird vegetarian casseroles. Their kids give me the creeps.”

“I'm sure it was an improvement,” I said as I turned onto Thurber Street. Cars were scarce, pedestrians nonexistent. In the dark, the Book Depot looked more like an abandoned warehouse than a haven of intellectual enlightenment. I made a note to buy a few strands of Christmas lights—presuming the passenger in the backseat was not a psychopath who'd shoot a mild-mannered bookseller on a whim.

“So I was thinking I might not have to move out after all,” Roy went on, “as long as I didn't do anything to set him off again. We went into the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of brandy and asked me if I wanted some. I said I didn't. He got all huffy and kept insisting until I finally said okay. Then he said for me to sit down at the kitchen table because there was something he needed to share with me. I was—well, I was getting really nervous at this point.”

“Had he ever offered you alcohol before?”

“Never. He hardly spoke to me unless there was something he wanted me to do, like go down to the end of the driveway to get the mail or do minor repairs on his rental stuff.” He tapped my shoulder. “Don't turn here, Mrs. Malloy. I'm not ready for the cops.”

I abandoned my less-than-subtle subterfuge and drove toward the campus. “Okay, last night Nicholas was behaving strangely. You sat down as ordered—and then what?”

“Maybe I shouldn't tell you,” he said in a voice that reminded me he was only sixteen years old. “You'll probably think it was all my fault. It wasn't like I was handcuffed to the table or anything. I could have gotten up and left. I wish I had.”

“Why?” I asked softly.

“He started putting moves on me. You know what I mean? He put his hand on my knee, and then, before I could figure out what the hell was going on, he—you know—he was saying things and grabbing at my crotch. This never happened to me before. Girls, maybe, but not some guy older than my father! A guy, fer chrissake!”

All I could hope at that moment was Roy would not be so overwhelmed with raw memories that he inadvertently squeezed the trigger. I heard the anguish in his voice, the adolescent uncertainty that he might have dropped a hint, might have done or said something to suggest that his true sexual identity was being suppressed. Whether or not it was did not concern me, and I certainly had not spent enough time with Nicholas Chunder to have formed an opinion about his.

I pulled into the football stadium parking lot, selected one of five hundred empty spaces, and turned off the engine. “What did you do?”

“I hit him. He sat there for a minute, then took a gun out of his pocket. I told him that all I wanted to do was go back to my apartment and go to bed. He started making this grotesque noise, like he was laughing but not really. I was so scared, Mrs. Malloy. You've got to believe me.”

“Why didn't you run out the door at this point?” I asked.

Roy's fist bounced against the top of the front seat. “I should have, but I was petrified. He had a gun. It flashed across my mind that all he had to say was that I'd attacked him and he shot me in self-defense. I only hit him to make him leave me alone.”

“Then what happened?”

“I went after the gun, and we sorta fell on the floor. The next thing I realized, the gun went off and he was breathing funny. I figured he could call himself an ambulance, so I went back to my apartment and tried to stay awake until somebody showed up. The brandy must have gotten to me, because I fell asleep on the couch. When my alarm went off at six, I walked across the pasture to the grove. I was praying like I'd never prayed before that Nicholas would come. You know the rest.”

“I'll do what I can to help you,” I said, easily imagining his version but not completely buying it. Nicholas Chunder had been an elderly single man, but I was not ready to stereotype him so neatly. Roy seemed distressed; however, he'd had time to rehearse. “If you're telling the truth, Sergeant Jorgeson can steer you through the maze of legal problems. He'll certainly sympathize with your reaction to Nicholas's advances.”

“I should have pushed him down and run,” he said glumly. “I know that.”

“You're young. No one will fault you for what you
should
have done. Why don't we go to the police station now? I'll stay with you and do whatever I can until your parents get back from Borneo.”

He began to whimper. “Would you do that for me, Mrs. Malloy? Like, nobody's ever done that before. My parents got divorced when I was ten, and my mother's an alcoholic and hooked on prescription drugs. My father married that bitch with all her dysfunctional relatives, so he's too busy to deal with me. Malthea's about the only person who cares about me.”

“I'm sure other people care about you, too,” I said, hoping he wouldn't demand a list of names.

“Look, why don't you talk to the police and see what they say? Let Malthea know, and I'll get in touch with her.”

The car door opened and then slammed shut. Roy sprinted across the parking lot and vanished into the trees surrounding the admissions building at the top of the hill. As I sat, pondering his story, a campus cop pulled into the lot and stopped next to me.

“The lot's closed,” he said. “Is something wrong?”

“I'm not sure,” I replied truthfully.

I drove to my duplex, rerunning Roy's story in my mind. I reminded myself that I didn't know him well enough to judge his sincerity. I'd heard derogatory comments from Caron and Sullivan Sawyer, but for all I knew, Roy could have qualified for the title of patron saint of abused postpubescents—or at least those whose parents were on sabbatical in Borneo.

I was thinking all these muddled thoughts when I arrived at home and found a uniformed officer waiting for me on the doorstep. He was yet another member of the Farberville Police Department; I seemed to be going through the roster at an alarming rate.

“Yes?” I said.

“Where's Roy Tate?”

“I don't know. Maybe he's applying for admission to the college. That's where he was going when I last saw him.”

“This isn't a joke,” said the officer. “There's a warrant for his arrest.”

I gave the officer a sketchy account of what had taken place at the duplex and in my car, omitting any mention of the gun Roy'd claimed he had. I would have to bear full responsibility if he used it on a rookie campus cop, but I didn't want that same cop to be so jittery that he shot Roy on sight. The phrase “armed and dangerous” can lead to such a result.

“I doubt he'll go back to Malthea's,” I added, “but you might send someone to the Sawyers' house and Gilda D'Orcher's trailer. He doesn't seem to know any other people. Please let Sergeant Jorgeson know that I'll come by the station tomorrow morning.”

The officer wrote down the names and left. I went inside, kicked off my shoes, and punched buttons on the microwave to reheat that which had had nearly two hours to congeal into gelatinous glop. Caron's door was closed and her lights were off. I eased open the door to make sure that she was under the covers (as opposed to having gone undercover—an entirely different concept), then returned to the kitchen and retrieved the entrée.

At least, I thought as I mindlessly shoveled food into my mouth, my day had been anything but dull.

So there, Peter Rosen.

 

Jorgeson put down the stubby pencil and looked at me. “Do you believe his story?”

“Hard to say.” I took a sip of coffee, shuddered, and set the Styrofoam cup on the corner of his desk. “That sort of thing does happen. Roy put on quite a show, but he's still just a kid and he certainly could have panicked when Nicholas molested him. Teenagers can be painfully self-conscious about their bodies. Every time Caron gets a pimple, she plunges into despair and spends hours staring at it in the mirror. That isn't to say she doesn't spend hours in front of the mirror when her skin is clear. If I'd let her, she'd put a mirror on the ceiling of her bedroom.”

“Forensics didn't turn up anything useful,” Jorgeson said, apparently inured to the toxic sludge that passed for coffee at the PD. “There were fingerprints all over the house, but that's usually the case. We'll match what we can to persons known to have been there that evening. The rest of them will be sent to the FBI, but I don't think they're going to come back with a serial killer. I can't see asking for prints from the membership of the genealogical society.”

“I suppose not,” I said, sighing. “I feel sorry for Roy. He's clearly unhappy and seems to go out of his way to be a misfit and a loner. Problems with both of his parents, a stepmother, a new school—those things can corrode any teenager's sense of worth. What'll happen to him, Jorgeson?”

“Nothing at the moment, since we don't have him in custody. It's a shame you didn't deliver him to us, Mrs. Malloy. He'd be talking to a lawyer instead of hiding in the basement of almost any building on campus.”

“He
said
he had a gun; I wasn't inclined to find out if he did by daring him to put a bullet in my back. None of the other Druids have seen him?”

“They say not, but who knows? I can't figure out any of them. My wife and I go to church where there are pews and stained-glass windows, not bushes and squirrels.” Jorgeson shuffled through a pile of reports, snuffling and wheezing like a bulldog. “Here's what we've got on the victim. Nicholas Chunder was sixty-eight, a retired doctor, an upstanding member of a couple of civic clubs. He was born and raised in Indianapolis, went to medical school in Chicago, and opened a private practice here after twenty-five years in a group practice back in Indianapolis. Not so much as a hint of scandal back there. His wife, an heiress with a considerable trust fund, died of cancer when she was in her early thirties. There were no children.”

“Did he have family in this area?”

“We didn't come across anything in his files to suggest it. I spoke to his lawyer on the phone. He said the heir is a nephew in Terre Haute. Don't start wiggling your nose like that, Mrs. Malloy—the nephew was wounded in Vietnam and is a paraplegic. Besides, I thought we'd just agreed that Roy confessed to the homicide. Why would he do that if it wasn't the truth?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted.

Jorgeson said he'd assure Malthea that Roy would be treated gently if he turned himself in. I drove to the Book Depot, made sure Roy wasn't hiding behind the boiler, and then started a pot of coffee and sat down at my desk while the Mr. Coffee machine groaned in what sounded like terminal agony. It was slightly after nine, which meant Peter would be drinking coffee, reading a newspaper, and no doubt keeping an eye on the time so he wouldn't be late picking up Leslie at the airport. I battled back an irrational urge to break into his house and search for a photograph of the blissful couple on their wedding day.

When the coffee was ready, I filled a mug and went up front to read the newspaper. A short article about Nicholas Chunder's murder had made the second page, but there was no mention of the Druid connection. It was only a matter of time before reporters heard rumors and started nosing around. Malthea might decide it would be diverting to be interviewed on the local news so she could proselytize to the non-tree-huggers. My name would surface. Despite my efforts to downplay my involvement in previous cases, I'd had a bit of publicity in the past. I could anticipate a good deal more than fifteen minutes in the limelight this time.

I spent the remainder of the morning wishing that Jorgeson would call to say they'd taken Roy into custody and arranged for a lawyer. At eleven o'clock (aka noon EST), I snatched up the feather duster and attacked the racks with heretofore unseen diligence. When my science-fiction hippie came into the store, I went for the dandruff on his shoulders. He retreated out the door and scurried up the sidewalk.