Shooting Star (17 page)

Authors: Cynthia Riggs

BOOK: Shooting Star

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When the matinee was over, George Byron hitchhiked to his mother’s house in West Tisbury and burst in through her kitchen door.

“Hey, Mom!” he shouted, when he didn’t see her. “Mother?”

Ruth appeared at the door of her study, scowling. “Well? How did the matinee go?”

“You’re not still angry, are you?”

“I must say, George, I’m not thrilled with you. Aren’t you supposed to be at the theater?”

“I’ve got about three hours. I come in peace.” He held out his arms.

Ruth folded hers. “I can’t stay angry with you, George dear. But I am disappointed. What possessed you to side with that … that …”

“I’m not siding with them, Mom. I know what I’m doing.”

Ruth turned away from her son. “How’s the barn working out?”

“I meant to tell you about that, Mom. Did you know that someone …”

At that moment, the phone rang. Ruth went into the study to answer.

When she returned, she said, “George, dear, I’ve got to pick
up some copy at Tisbury Printer before they close. Don’t forget what you were about to say. Ta, ta!”

“I was about to tell you someone had set up a hideaway in the barn,” George said to his mother’s back, but she was already in the car with the windows shut.

CHAPTER 24

While Victoria was on stage graciously crediting Dearborn Hill for his production of
Frankenstein Unbound,
Roderick was backing his car into a parking place he’d found in the shade of a maple tree on Franklin Street. He left the keys on the floor, made sure the window was open, shut the door, and started to walk back to the theater. The evening production wouldn’t begin for another four hours. He thought about leaving his makeup on until then, since applying it took such a long time, but the afternoon was warm, his face itched, and he was fed up with the reactions of people on the street.

“Roderick,” someone said, behind him.

He groaned, expecting another wisecrack about how great he was looking, then recognized Bruce Duncan, wearing his usual black T-shirt with the fluorescent green letters, VETA.

“What d’ya say, Bruce.” He pointed at the shirt. “Don’t you ever change clothes?”

Bruce looked at his shirt. “I’ve got four of these.”

“Someone should start a VETP,” said Roderick, with a smirk.

“P?”

“Plants. Vineyarders for the Ethical Treatment of Plants.”

“Very funny. You heading back to the theater?”

Roderick nodded, and the electrodes on the sides of his head bobbed. He pointed to his stitched-up face. “Stuff is driving me crazy. Gotta get it off.”

“I was talking to Mrs. Trumbull before she went on stage,”
said Duncan, looking up to Roderick who was much taller, even not wearing his costume boots.

“I’m picking her up in another ten minutes or so,” said Roderick. “She wants me to take her to the police station.”

Duncan ran his hands over his T-shirt. “Police station?”

Roderick heaved a great sigh. “Yeah.”

“Police station,” Duncan murmured almost to himself. Then to Roderick, “That must have been what Mrs. Trumbull wanted.”

“What do you mean?” asked Roderick, lumbering off in the direction of the theater.

“Hold on,” said Duncan. “She wants to talk to Nora.”

Roderick stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Nora? The stage manager? Why Nora?”

Duncan nodded. “I’m sure that’s what she meant. She said she’d be a while. Come on.” He turned back to Roderick’s car. “Might as well go in your car. You drive.”

Roderick stood where he was. “I want to get this stuff off my face before I do anything else.”

“They’ve got heavy-duty cleaner in the police station, for sure,” said Duncan. “Let’s go.”

“Mrs. Trumbull asked me …”

“I told you, Mrs. T. is going to be tied up.”

“But …”

Duncan took Roderick’s arm and steered him toward his car. “We can call her from the police station. Save her the trouble. Give her a chance to talk with Nora.”

Back at Roderick’s car, Duncan opened the unlocked passenger side door and got in.

Roderick stood by the driver’s side. “As stage manager, it’s Nora who’s supposed to put blanks in the stage gun.”

“She’s supposed to guard the props, yes,” said Duncan. “Make sure nobody messes with anything. Somebody obviously did, loading a joke gun with that flag. Come on, get in.”

“Unless Nora did it to be funny.”

“Nora? She doesn’t know how to be funny,” said Duncan. “Zero sense of humor.”

Roderick paused. “I really ought to go back and make sure Mrs. Trumbull …”

“Hurry up. You’ve got a performance tonight, don’t you?”

“I guess.” Roderick opened his door, reached for his keys, and slid onto his seat. “Nora put real bullets in the gun.”

“What?”

Roderick realized he’d said too much.

“You said she loaded it with real bullets? No way.”

“I misspoke.” Roderick turned the key in the ignition.

“State police barracks,” said Duncan. “Near the hospital.”

“I know where it is.” Roderick checked the rearview mirror and pulled out of the parking space. “I still think Mrs. Trumbull should know …”

“Hurry up,” said Duncan.

Tim Eldredge got up from his seat behind the front desk as Bruce Duncan and Roderick, with flakes of makeup sloughing off onto the clean linoleum floor, walked in. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “Goddamned nightmare.”

“This
man has a confession to make,” said Duncan, taking the lead. You want to tell the trooper here about the murders?”

“Murders
!” said Eldredge.
“Plural
?”

“Right,” said Duncan. “Murders.”

“More than one murder?”

“Five hundred,” said Duncan.

“What did you say?”

“Not that many,” said Roderick, hanging his head.

“Five hundred,” Duncan repeated.

“I gotta get this makeup off,” said Roderick. “It’s driving me crazy.”

“Right,” said Eldredge. “Men’s room is this way. Plenty of paper towels. Good soap. Biodegradable. Follow me.”

Roderick shambled after the trooper. “I didn’t kill five hundred people. He’s crazy.”

“Right-o. While you’re cleaning up, I’ll see if Sergeant Smalley is free to talk to you.”

“Thanks,” said Roderick. “I can’t tell you what a relief this is.”

“I bet,” said Eldredge, closing the men’s room door behind him. He returned to the reception area, where Duncan was examining the Wanted posters. “Sir, about this five hundred alleged deaths … ?”

“Five hundred,” said Duncan, smoothing the front of his T-shirt. “Probably a few more. Confirmed, not alleged.”

“Can you give me any details, sir?”

“They arrived on the Island by plane …”

“They? All five hundred?”

“Let me finish. They arrived on the Island by plane, and he,” Duncan pointed in the direction of the men’s room, “left them out on the tarmac over the weekend.”

“What … ?”

“ … on the tarmac. In the hot sun over the weekend. Do you understand? All of them died.”

“Unh,” said Eldredge. “You better talk to the sergeant.”

“Fine.” Duncan returned to the Wanted posters while Eldredge called upstairs to Sergeant Smalley.

He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and mumbled into the phone, “Couple of loonies to see you, sir.”

Alison McAlistair had finished the preliminary examination of Peg Storm’s and Bob Scott’s bodies, all she was able to do, given the Island’s limited facilities.

Both deaths were suspicious, no question about it. She’d shown Mrs. Trumbull the finger marks on Peg Storm’s dead throat, and the Boston lab was testing the residue in the plastic cup the cleaning woman had found next to Bob Scott’s body.

When Alison got back to her own lab, she would do the full
autopsies. By then, the toxicology results should be in, and she’d know whether Scott had been poisoned or not, and possibly, who killed him, if he had been poisoned.

She drove the borrowed police car back to Victoria’s. The first thing she saw when she entered the kitchen was an envelope addressed to Mrs. Amanda Vanderhoop in childish printing, and her heart raced. A note from Teddy? She picked it up. The envelope was sealed, and Alison was too firmly entrenched in her respect for privacy to open it.

Teddy’s mother probably was still at her house, going through papers that might give some clue as to where Teddy could be. She looked up the number and dialed. No one answered, and no answering machine picked up. She tried the cell phone number that Victoria had noted on a Post-It and got the message that the phone was out of service.

Alison thought about her own lost son, Douglas. The ache never eased. Douglas, too, had disappeared, vanished on his way home from school. Now, fourteen years later, she still had dreams about him, hoped he was alive somewhere. What would he be doing now? She often played that game. What would he look like? He’d be twenty-two now.

She knew, though, the chances of his being alive were nonexistent. She had been involved in too many cases of missing children she would later find dead.

She changed back into the clothes she’d worn to the Island the morning after dress rehearsal. Had it been only two days? She’d arrived early Friday morning and now it was Saturday afternoon. A lot had happened in that short time.

She dropped her borrowed clothes into the washer, added soap, and started the machine. The Saturday matinee of Victoria’s play must be over by now. She looked at her watch. Almost five o’clock. She wondered how the play had gone. Ironic that it had become a hugely successful farce, despite all Victoria’s efforts at serious drama.

John Smalley had asked her out to dinner this evening, her last night. After dinner, she’d catch the late ferry and be home before midnight. She and John had worked so closely during the time she’d been on the Island, she’d had no chance to get to know Howland Atherton, the drug agent and the original monster in Victoria’s play. She might come over to the Vineyard some weekend to accept his rain check for a swim at his beach.

While Elizabeth’s jeans and shirts were thrashing around in the washer, Alison thought about Victoria, bravely reading her poetry at Island Java, ignoring the debacle her play had become. When Alison returned, perhaps Victoria would let her stay with her again.

She laughed out loud when she remembered how all three men, Toby the undertaker, John Smalley the police sergeant, and Howland Atherton the DEA agent, had tried to protect Victoria from the unpleasantness of Peg Storm’s death. Victoria had marched right into the funeral parlor over their protests and had studied with interest the marks on Peg’s throat that Alison had shown her. Bravo, Mrs. Trumbull!

When the washer finally shuddered to a stop, Alison switched the laundry into the dryer and pushed in the dial. As the ancient machine started up, she heard a squeal, almost like a child’s cry. Thinking the squeal came from the dryer, she opened the door, but the sound continued. She looked around for McCavity. He was asleep in a patch of sunlight on the cookroom floor.

The squeal turned into a cry that came from the foot of the front stairs. “Mrs. Trumbull?”

Alison swiveled around. “Teddy?”

A small, redheaded, barefoot boy stumbled into the kitchen. He was hugging a fuzzy blanket. “Where’s Mrs. Trumbull? I want my dad.”

“Teddy?”

“I don’t feel so good.”

“Teddy!” She threw her arms around the boy, the size and shape of her lost Douglas.

“My head hurts.” He snuggled against her. “I want my dad.” He was fiercely hot. She held him away from her and looked him over. His face and arms were covered with spots.

Chicken pox.

CHAPTER 25

Chef Callaghan had demonstrated to the authorities that he was conscientious, reliable, responsible, punctilious, and clearly remorseful. He was a model prisoner, hard-working and quiet. He tended the garden behind the jail, and from the fresh vegetables he’d grown in the two months he’d been incarcerated, he prepared delectable and healthful dishes for the other inmates and the county officers, who’d taken to dropping by the jail at mealtimes. He was a fine role model for the other seven prisoners, who were young enough to be his sons—and daughter (who had a cellblock to herself). He still had sixteen months of his drug sentence to serve.

On Howland Atherton’s recommendation, since it was Howland who had apprehended Chef Callaghan, the chef was given the cushy job, along with two other trusted inmates, of picking up trash along State Road. The three would walk on either side of the road followed by a county vehicle with rotating orange lights that warned approaching or passing vehicles of men—or women—at work.

Driving the county van at two miles an hour behind the jailbirds was an achingly, awesomely boring assignment.

Early that morning, Chef Callaghan had baked bread, cookies, and brownies before he prepared breakfast for his patrons. At seven-thirty, the sheriff came into the dining room. He inhaled the aroma of newly baked bread and the sweet scent of chocolate.

“I’ll be sorry when your time’s up, Chef,” he said.

Chef Callaghan grunted. “Not me.”

“Approval came through for roadside cleanup duty this afternoon.”

“I heard.”

The sheriff shook his head. “The grapevine. You guys hear stuff before we do.”

“Figures,” said the chef.

Alison held Teddy tightly against her. His body was hot. “Where are you sleeping, Teddy?”

“The attic.”

“I’m making up a bed for you on the library sofa. Sit here while I do that.” She gently maneuvered him into Victoria’s caned armchair, found a blanket in the linen closet, and draped it over his shoulders. She soaked a face cloth with witch hazel from Victoria’s medicine cabinet and handed it to him.

“Hold this against your forehead, Teddy. Do you itch?”

He shook his head.

“You will. Witch hazel helps. Where’s your dad?”

“On his boat.”

“Does he have a cell phone?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t know the number, do you?”

Teddy nodded and gave it to her.

“I’ll make up your bed, then I’ll try to reach your dad. I called your mother at your house, but there was no answer.”

“She’s got a boyfriend.” Teddy turned away. “She’s probably with him.” He looked up at her, his eyes red and swollen. “I don’t like him.”

“Well.” Alison decided not to comment. She gathered up bed linens, made up the sofa in the library, settled Teddy with a glass of orange juice mixed with sugar water. Then she called the state police barracks.

“Teddy’s safe, John. He’s been here at Victoria’s.”

“What I suspected. Good. See you around seven?”

“Lovely.”

Then she dialed Teddy’s father. A robotic voice came on and she left a message for him to call her right away.

Five minutes later, the phone rang.

“This is Jefferson Vanderhoop. You called?” He spoke above the sound of guitar music and laughter.

“Dr. Alison McAlistair here, and I’ve found Teddy.”

“What did you say?”

“I’ve found Teddy.”

“Wait a second while I step outside where I can hear.”

Alison heard a door open and shut, and then only the sound of a seagull crying and water lapping. “We’ve found Teddy.”

“Where is he?”

“Safe. At Mrs. Trumbull’s.”

“Thank God! Who are you?”

“A forensic scientist called in to help locate Teddy. I’ve been working with the authorities on another matter.”

“Have you contacted his mother?”

“I haven’t been able to reach her.”

“Not surprised. I’m at Island Java right now,” he paused. “Reading poetry. It’ll take me fifteen minutes to get there. Is he okay?”

“Not feeling great at the moment. He’s come down with chicken pox, and he’s calling for you.”

“Tell him I’m on the way.” The connection cut off.

After lunch, Red Callaghan filled a thermos with coffee and another thermos with lemonade for Mr. Ferreira, this week’s driver of the county vehicle, and wrapped a half-dozen brownies in aluminum foil. One entire pan full. He set the thermoses and the paper bag of foil-wrapped brownies on the kitchen pass-through.

Gus Ferreira, a portly man in his early sixties who’d taken a job with the county after he’d retired from an off-Island career,
had lost the coin flip this week. Actually, Gus was one of the few county employees who didn’t mind the slow pace of roadside cleanup duty.

He nodded to the thermoses and paper bag. “What’ve you got for me today?”

“Brownies, lemonade.”

“Cream in the coffee?”

“Double cream, double sugar.”

“Good man. Hear you’re one of the roadside crew this afternoon.”

“You heard right.”

“Nice duty. Get you out of doors.”

“Something different,” said the cook.

At the state police barracks, Sergeant Smalley shuffled papers in a businesslike manner, deliberately paying no attention to the two loonies Trooper Eldredge had sent to him, when one of them coughed and he decided it was time to look up.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

The shorter of the two men standing in front of his desk smoothed a long strand of hair over his scalp and said, indicating the tall, younger man, “He’s got a confession to make.”

The younger man nodded and smiled. His black shirt and trousers seemed to be soaked with blood.

“Your name, sir?” Smalley asked the shorter man, while he studied the gore on the black garments of the taller.

“Bruce Duncan. Five hundred. Dead. Every one of them. Boiled to death.”

“No, no,” said the taller man. “No, he’s wrong.”

“Five hundred,” repeated Bruce Duncan, jabbing a finger at his companion, while still staring at Smalley.

“Just a moment.” Smalley leaned back in his chair so he could look up at the taller man. “Your name, sir?”

“Roderick Hill.” Roderick clasped his hands behind his back
and shifted from one foot to the other. “He’s mistaken. I came here because I wanted to tell you …”

Duncan glared up at his companion before he spoke to Smalley again. “Not mistaken, officer.”

Smalley couldn’t take his eyes off of Roderick’s costume. “Would you mind explaining that, Mr. Hill?” He gestured at the gore.

“This?” said Roderick looking down at his gut. “I’ve been shot. I’m in the play at the playhouse and it’s blood. But what I wanted to tell you …”

“Stage blood?”

Bruce Duncan interrupted. “He left them out on the tarmac in the sun over the weekend, and they boiled to death.”

“What?” said Smalley.

“Goldfish.”

“Fish?” said Smalley.

“No, no,” Roderick insisted. “That’s not what I wanted to tell you. I came here because …”

At which point the phone rang. “Excuse me,” said Smalley and picked up the phone. “Smalley here.” After listening for a moment, he put his hand over the mouthpiece. “I’ve got to take this call. Leave your names and phone numbers with Trooper Eldredge downstairs. Let him know where we can get in touch with you if we need to.”

“But …” said Roderick.

After giving Jefferson Vanderhoop directions to Victoria’s house, Alison headed for the library to tell Teddy that his father was on the way, when the phone rang.

“Alison? It’s Victoria. Can you give me a ride? I’m at the playhouse and I seem to have been stood up.”

“Teddy’s out of hiding, Victoria.”

There was a long silence at the other end.

“Victoria? Mrs. Trumbull? Are you still there?”

“I’m thinking,” said Victoria.

“He’s come down with chicken pox. I made up a bed for him in the library.”

“I thought he seemed awfully quiet. You’d better stay with him, then. I’ll ask Howland for a ride. Have you called Teddy’s mother?”

“No answer at her house. Do you have any idea where she might be?”

“None whatsoever. His father is at Island Java reading his poetry. You can probably reach him there.”

“I already did.”

“Cellular phone. Of course.”

“He’ll be here in about fifteen minutes.”