Moonlight Becomes You (20 page)

Back at the house, she paused only long enough to have another quick cup of coffee before she left promptly at nine. She wanted to get the cemetery visits over with.

40

A
T QUARTER PAST NINE
, N
EIL
S
TEPHENS STOPPED HIS CAR
in front of the mailbox with the name
MOORE
painted on it. He got out, walked up the path and onto the porch, and rang the bell. There was no answer. Feeling like a voyeur, he went over to the window. The shade was only half drawn, and he had a clear view into what seemed to be the living room.

Not knowing what he was looking for, other than for some tangible sign that Maggie Holloway might be there, he walked around to the back and peered through the window in the kitchen door. He could see a coffeepot on the stove, and next to the sink a cup and saucer and juice glass were upturned, suggesting that they had been rinsed and left to dry. But had they been there for days or only minutes?

Finally he decided he had nothing to lose by ringing a neighbor's bell and inquiring whether anyone had seen Maggie. He received no response at the first two houses he tried. At the third house, the doorbell was answered by an attractive couple who appeared to be in their mid-sixties. As he quickly told them why he was there, he realized he had lucked out.

The couple, who introduced themselves as Irma and John Woods, told him of Nuala Moore's death and funeral, and of Maggie's presence in the house. “We were supposed to visit our daughter last Saturday but didn't go until after Nuala's funeral,” Mrs. Woods explained. “Just got back late
last night. I know Maggie is here. I haven't spoken to her since we got back, but I saw her go for a walk this morning.”

“And I saw her drive past about fifteen minutes ago,” John Woods volunteered.

They invited him in for coffee and told him about the night of the murder.

“What a sweet girl Maggie is,” Irma Woods sighed. “I could tell how heartbroken she was about losing Nuala, but she isn't one to carry on. The hurt was all in her eyes.”

Maggie, Neil thought. I wish I could have been here for you.

The Woodses had no idea where Maggie might have gone this morning, or how long she would be out.

I'll leave her a note to call me, Neil decided. There's nothing else I can do. But then he had an inspiration. When he drove away five minutes later, he had left a note for Maggie on the door, and he also had her phone number tucked securely in his pocket.

41

R
EMEMBERING THE CURIOUS QUESTIONS ASKED BY THE
child who had wanted to know why she was taking pictures at Nuala's grave, Maggie stopped at a florist's and bought an assortment of fall flowers to place on the graves she intended to inspect.

As before, once she passed the entrance to St. Mary's, the welcoming statue of the angel and the meticulously kept
plots seemed to impart a sense of peace and immortality. Veering to the left, she drove up the winding incline that led to Nuala's grave.

As she stepped from the car, she sensed that a workman weeding the gravel path nearby was watching her. She had heard of people being mugged in cemeteries, but the thought passed quickly. There were other workmen in the area as well.

But given the fact there was someone so close by, she was glad she had thought to pick up the flowers; she would rather not seem to be examining the grave. Squatting down next to the plot, she selected a half dozen of the flowers and laid them one by one at the base of the tombstone.

The flowers Greta Shipley had placed there on Tuesday had been removed, and Maggie quickly consulted the snapshot she was holding to see exactly where she had detected the glint of some metal-like object.

It was fortunate she had brought the picture, she realized, because the object she was looking for had sunk more deeply into the moist earth and easily could have been missed. But it
was
there.

She looked swiftly to the side and realized she had the workman's undivided attention. Kneeling forward, she bowed her head and crossed herself, then let her folded hands drop to the ground. Still in the posture of prayer, her fingers touching the sod, she dug around the object and freed it.

She waited for a moment. When she glanced around again, the workman had his back turned to her. With one motion, she yanked the object up and hastily concealed it between her joined palms. As she did this, she heard a muffled ringing sound.

A bell? she thought. Why in God's name would anyone bury a bell on Nuala's grave? Certain that the workman had
heard the sound as well, she got up and walked quickly back to her car.

She laid the bell down on top of the remaining flowers. Not wanting to stay another minute under the scrutiny of the watchful maintenance worker, she drove slowly in the direction of the second grave she wanted to visit. She parked in the nearby cul-de-sac, then looked around. There was no one nearby.

Opening the car window, she carefully picked up the bell and held it outside. After brushing off the loose earth that clung to it, she turned it around in her hand, examining it, her fingers holding the clapper to keep it from pealing.

The bell was about three inches high, and surprisingly heavy, not unlike an old-fashioned miniature school bell, except for the decorative garland of flowers bordering the base. The clapper was heavy too, she noticed. When allowed to hang freely, it no doubt could make quite a sound.

Maggie closed the car window, held the bell near the floor of the car and swung it. A melancholy but nevertheless clear ringing sound resounded through the car.

A Stone for Danny Fisher,
she thought. That was the title of one of the books that had been in her father's library. She remembered that as a child she had asked him what the title meant, and he had explained that it was a tradition in the Jewish faith that anyone stopping by the grave of a friend or relative would place a stone there as a sign of the visit.

Could this bell signify something like that? Maggie wondered. Feeling vaguely as though she were doing something amiss in taking the bell, she slid it out of sight under the seat of the car. Then she selected another half-dozen flowers, and with the appropriate photograph in hand, went to revisit the grave of another of Greta Shipley's friends.

*   *   *

Her last stop was at Mrs. Rhinelander's grave; it had been the photograph of this grave that most clearly seemed to show a gap in the sod near the base of the tombstone. As Maggie arranged the remaining flowers on the damp grass, her fingers sought and found the indented area.

*   *   *

Maggie needed to think, and she was not ready to go back to the house where there might be interruptions. Instead she drove into the center of town and found a luncheonette, where she ordered a toasted blueberry muffin and coffee.

I
was
hungry, she admitted to herself as the crusty muffin and strong coffee helped to dissipate the all-encompassing uneasiness she had experienced in the cemeteries.

Another memory of Nuala flashed into her mind. When Maggie was ten, Porgie, her roguish miniature poodle, had jumped on Nuala as she lay dozing on the couch. She had let out a shriek, and when Maggie went running in, Nuala had laughed and said, “Sorry, honey. I don't know why I'm so jumpy. Someone must be walking on my grave.”

Then, because Maggie had been at an age when she wanted to know everything, Nuala had had to explain that the expression was an old Irish saying meaning that someone was walking over the spot where you would someday be buried.

There
had
to be a simple explanation for what she had found today, Maggie reasoned. Of the six burial plots she had visited, four, including Nuala's, had bells at the base of the tombstone, each exactly like the others in weight and size. It appeared as well that one had been removed from the ground near Mrs. Rhinelander's tombstone. So that meant only one of Greta Shipley's friends had not received this odd tribute—if, indeed, that was what it was.

As she drained the last of the coffee and shook her head,
refusing the waitress's smiling offer of a refill, a name popped into Maggie's mind: Mrs. Bainbridge!

Like Greta Shipley, she had been at Latham Manor since it opened. She must have known all those women too, Maggie realized.

Back in her car, Maggie called Letitia Bainbridge on the cellular phone. She was in her apartment.

“Come right over,” she told Maggie. “I'd love to see you. I've been a bit blue this morning.”

“I'm on my way,” Maggie replied.

When she replaced the phone in its cradle, she reached under the seat for the bell she had taken from Nuala's grave. Then she put it in her shoulder bag.

She shuddered involuntarily as she pulled away from the curb. The metal had felt cold and clammy to her touch.

42

I
T HAD BEEN ONE OF THE LONGEST WEEKS OF
M
ALCOLM
Norton's life. The shock of having Nuala Moore cancel the sale of her house, followed by Barbara's announcement that she was going to visit for an extended period with her daughter in Vail, had left him numbed and frightened.

He
had
to get his hands on that house! Telling Janice about the impending change in the Wetlands Act had been a terrible mistake. He should have taken a chance and forged her name on the mortgage papers. He was
that
desperate.

Which was why, when Barbara put through the call from Chief Brower on this Friday morning, Malcolm felt perspiration
spring out on his forehead. It took him a few moments to compose himself enough to be satisfied that his tone of voice would radiate good cheer.

“Good morning, Chief. How are you?” he said, trying to put a smile in his voice.

Chet Brower clearly was not in the mood for chitchat. “I'm fine. I'd like to drop over and talk with you for a few minutes today.”

What about?
Malcolm thought, momentarily panicked, but said in a hearty voice, “That would be great, but I warn you, I already bought my tickets to the Policemen's Ball.” Even in his own ears, his stab at humor fell flat.

“When are you free?” Brower snapped.

Norton had no intention of telling Brower exactly how free he was. “I had a closing at eleven that's been postponed till one, so I do have an opening.”

“I'll see you at eleven.”

Well after hearing the dismissive click, Malcolm stared nervously at the receiver he held in his hand. Finally he set it down.

There was a gentle tap on the door, and Barbara poked her head in the office. “Malcolm, is there anything wrong?”

“What could be wrong? He just wants to talk to me. The only thing I can imagine is that it has to do with last Friday night.”

“Oh, of course. The murder. The usual procedure is for the police to keep asking close friends if they might have remembered anything that didn't seem important at the time. And, of course, you and Janice did go to Mrs. Moore's for the dinner party.”

You and Janice.
Malcolm frowned. Was that reference intended to remind him that he still had taken no action to legally separate from Janice? No, unlike his wife, Barbara didn't play word games filled with hidden meanings. Her
son-in-law was an assistant district attorney in New York; she had probably heard him talk about his cases, Malcolm reasoned. And, of course, television and movies were filled with details of police procedure.