Tippy Toe Murder (11 page)
“First things first,” said Caro. “Part of
the problem is that you’ve got your shoes on.” She indicated the pink and white
Reeboks on Lisa’s little feet.
“I always wear shoes,” said Lisa, furrowing
her brows together under a heavy fringe of bangs.
“I know, and that’s the trouble. Shoes keep
you from feeling with your feet, and discovering things. When you wear shoes
you can step on a caterpillar and not even know it. Squish. No more
caterpillar.”
“Yuck.” The little girl wrinkled her
freckled nose.
“But when you’re barefoot, you can feel
that hairy caterpillar tickle your foot, just like this.” Caro tickled Lisa’s
skinny ribs, covered only with a thin T-shirt on this hot and humid day, and
was rewarded with a high-pitched little giggle.
“Then you stop, and look at the
caterpillar. After you watch him for a while you might decide to pretend you’re
a caterpillar. You try to move just like he does, and see how the world looks
when you’re flat on your belly. After a while you might decide to keep the
caterpillar, so you have to hunt for a jar to keep him in. You have to find a
hammer and nail to make holes in the lid so he can breathe. Then you have to
find food for him. Pretty soon, before you know it, the afternoon is gone and
it’s time for supper. But it all started with taking your shoes off.”
Lisa sat right down on the cabin porch and
yanked her shoes off, grabbing them by the heels and pulling. She grunted with
the effort.
“It’s easier if you untie them first,”
observed Caro.
The girl shrugged, pulled her socks off,
stood up, and wiggled her toes.
“Now what?”
“Now you go exploring with your feet. Why
don’t you take a little walk around the cabin?”
Caro watched as the little girl skipped
down the steps and began walking very carefully on her bare feet. She stopped
and turned, looking up at Caro.
“What if a spider bites me?” she asked.
“Why would a little tiny spider bite a
great giant of a girl like you? Any sensible spider would take one look at you
and run for his life. Imagine how enormous you must look to a spider.”
“Some spiders are poisonous.”
“That’s true, but it doesn’t do the spider
much good if he’s squashed flat under your big foot. You don’t need to be
afraid of spiders. I’m sure they’re much more afraid of you.”
“Maybe,” admitted Lisa, squatting down to
turn over a rock.
Caro watched her movements as she
investigated the roughly cleared area around the cabin. With her straight back,
long neck, and slender limbs, the girl had the natural build of a dancer. She
really ought to take lessons, thought Caro. Of course, it could all change with
the onset of puberty. You could just never tell which girls would retain their
graceful, lithe shapes and which would develop huge pendulous breasts and
spreading hips that would put an end to their budding careers in dance.
Not that youth is always so wonderful. It
must be dreadful to be small and powerless, dependent on the kindness, decency,
and generosity of adults. No, childhood wasn’t all fun and games. It certainly
wasn’t the innocent idyll free of responsibility that people liked to imagine.
This poor child had certainly endured her
share of pain and uncertainty. Caro watched as Lisa bent down over a patch of
wild berries.
“Can I eat these?” she called.
“Of course,” laughed Caro. “They’re
strawberries. You had some this morning in your pancakes.”
She smiled, watching as the little girl
greedily popped berry after berry into her mouth. It was good to see Lisa
enjoying herself. She’d been terribly tense and withdrawn the first few days at
the cabin, and the nights had been absolutely dreadful. One nightmare seemed to
follow another, and Caro had spent hours watching the little girl writhe and
twist on her narrow cot. She had screamed and whimpered, and sometimes her
cries were so loud that she woke herself up. Then she would sob hysterically as
Caro tried to comfort her.
“Everything’s all right, you’re safe,” she’d
murmured, settling the girl beside her in her big bed. She had wiped her eyes
and stroked her hair, and eventually the child had stopped crying and gone back
to sleep. Caro herself would be too agitated to sleep, so she would sit up
through the night, warding off the evil spirits that tormented Lisa. The
nightmare-filled nights left Caro exhausted, however, and she was grateful that
the bad dreams seemed to be coming less frequently.
“I didn’t find any caterpillars,”
complained Lisa. “I’m bored.”
“Bored already? I don’t think you looked
hard enough.” “There are absolutely no caterpillars anywhere around here,”
declared Lisa.
“We need to go on a caterpillar hunt. And
since caterpillar hunts can be rather hot, it would be nice if our hunt took us
someplace we could go for a swim. Can you swim?”
“Yes, I can,” answered Lisa. “I passed
Guppies and Goldfish and now I’m a Porpoise. Sharks is the only one better.” “That’s
wonderful,” said Caro, honestly impressed. “Have you ever gone swimming in a
waterfall?”
Lisa shook her head.
“Would you like to?”
“I can’t. I don’t have my swimsuit.”
“That’s no problem,” chuckled Caro. “We’re
miles from anywhere. You won’t need a swimsuit because there’s nobody to see
you. Now, follow me, and keep a sharp eye out for caterpillars.”
6
No comic books.
“Mommy, what’s this?” Sara held out her
finger, to which a little green worm was clinging for dear life.
“It’s an inchworm,” exclaimed Lucy. “Isn’t
it cute?”
“No, it’s icky,” said Sara, frantically
shaking it off. “How long do we have to stay here?”
“We just got here,” said Lucy, looking
around the baseball field for a place to sit. It was the Saturday morning
Little League game, Bill’s IGA Giants were playing the Yankee Real Estate
Clippers, and Lucy was uncomfortably aware that Sara’s sentiment echoed her
own.
Toby’s streak of no hits had turned the
weekly ritual into an endurance trial for Lucy. She scanned the crowd of
parents, determined to avoid Tim Rogers’ overenthusiastic mother and her clique
of friends. Lucy had made the mistake of sitting near her last week, only to
discover that Tim was destined to be the next Wade Boggs. When Toby went up to
bat for the third time, and struck out for the third time, Lucy knew death by
firing squad would be kinder than Andrea Rogers’ withering scorn. Even worse,
since Bill was the coach, she’d had to listen to an extremely unflattering
description of him after he’d benched Tim for arguing with the umpire.
Today, however, Lucy spied the friendly
faces of Marge Culpepper, Barney’s wife, and Pam Stillings, and went to sit
with them. Marge had brought Caro’s retriever George along, and had firmly
fastened him to her folding chair with a sturdy leash. He was quite content,
apparently chewing on a bone.
Lucy had barely sat down in her folding
chair when Sara began complaining.
“Mom, there’s nothing to do here,” she
whined.
“Don’t you want to find out who’s going to
win?” shouted Pam enthusiastically. Pam invested everything she did with her
boundless energy; she was always smiling.
“It’s a close game,” added Marge. “They’re
tied two to two, and it’s the bottom of the fifth.”
“Top of the sixth,” corrected Pam.
“See, only one more inning,” Lucy told
Sara. “The game will be over real soon. Why don’t you take this bubble stuff
and see how many bubbles you can blow? Stay clear of the field, now.”
Lucy watched as Sara ran off to join a pack
of preschoolers who were playing on the grass, then turned to Pam.
“I’m here under protest myself. I’m not
sure Little League is having a positive effect on my family.”
“What do you mean?” Pam was incredulous.
“Oh, practices are always scheduled for
suppertime, so all we ever eat anymore is hamburgers. Bill’s coaching, and that’s
taking a lot of time. And Toby wants to quit the team, but Bill won’t let him.”
“Gee, Adam loves it,” said Pam. “He lives,
breathes, even sleeps baseball. He buys Big League Chew, he saves baseball
cards, he sleeps with his favorite ball under his pillow. He wears his glove
when he watches the Red Sox on TV. He’s obsessed.”
“So is Eddie,” said Marge. “He’s trained
the dog to bring back the ball and he spends hours practicing his pitching.”
Adam and Eddie were both on the Clippers, the team playing against Bill’s.
“But they’re both good players,” said Lucy.
“Toby can’t seem to hit the ball.”
“Eddie had trouble last year,” said Marge. “It’s
something they have to grow into.”
“Maybe it’s just not his thing,” added Pam.
She was something of self-styled expert on child psychology, having taught
preschool before starting her family. “Ted wishes Adam would love reading and
writing like he does. But there’s no chance of that. He takes after me. Hasn’t
passed a spelling test yet this year. Ted can’t understand what the problem is;
he’s just a naturally good speller and thinks Adam ought to be, too. I tell him
we’ve got to help Adam discover the things he’s good at and encourage him to do
those things. There’s no way Adam is going to be a newspaperman like his
father.” She laughed, tossing her short blond hair.
“What does Ted think about Franny getting
arrested?” asked Lucy.
“Not much. He said it was one story he
hated to write.”
“Barney had to drive her up to Wilton,”
added Marge. “That’s the nearest prison with a facility for women. He felt
miserable.”
“That’s an awful place. I went there once,
years ago, as a literacy volunteer. I was supposed to tutor one of the inmates
so he could get a high school equivalency degree. I couldn’t stand it. It
smelled so bad, and the men all stared at me, even the guards. I only went
once, I couldn’t stomach going back,” said Pam.
“That’s where Franny is?” Lucy was
horrified. A place that could quell even Pam’s enthusiasm must be grim indeed.
“The women’s part isn’t so bad,” said
Marge. “At least that’s what Barney says.”
“I can’t believe Franny killed Slack. And
especially not with my video camera. She’s too conscientious.”
“Why did she have the camera, anyway?”
asked Pam.
“She wanted to show that Ben had been
stealing from the store. If you ask me, he’s the most likely suspect.”
“He drove into a tree, driving under the
influence,” reported Pam. “He had two friends with him.”
“That’s not all,” added Marge. “Those boys
had some sticks of dynamite they’d stolen from the store. God knows what they
were planning to do with them.”
“See?” exclaimed Lucy. “Maybe Slack caught
the boys stealing the dynamite and they bashed his head in.”
“The times don’t work out,” said Pam,
shaking her head. “The boys were in the Gilead police station when Morrill was
attacked.”
“The most important rule in murders is to
look at who benefits,” said Lucy. “Who gets the money? His wife, and believe
me, she had more reasons to kill him than Franny.”
“Ted called yesterday to get information
for the obit. He got the impression that nobody’s exactly heartbroken, not even
Kitty. But if she put up with him for fifty-odd years, it’s unlikely
...”
Her voice was suddenly cut off by a gasp
from the crowd. The three women turned just in time to see a high fly ball sail
into the air.
“That’s Toby,” screamed Pam.
“Way to go!” shouted Lucy, but her heart
sank as she spotted Eddie Culpepper, the pitcher, already in place, waiting for
the ball to plop neatly into his glove. It was Toby’s first hit and he was
going to be an easy out.
Just then George, having chewed himself
free of the leash, bounded onto the field eagerly, ready to play with his new
buddy. He jumped up to give Eddie a friendly lick and knocked him off his feet
before he could catch the ball. Toby made it to second while Eddie fought off
the affectionate dog and scrambled to reclaim the ball. He finally managed a
weak throw to third, but Rickie Goldman fumbled. Toby was safely home by the
time the ball finally reached catcher Adam Stillings. Toby, much to his
amazement, had made the winning run.
His jubilant teammates thronged about him,
congratulating him and giving him high fives. Bill joined the celebration,
sweeping Toby up in a big hug before resuming his role as coach.
“Okay, you guys. Line up to shake hands
with the other team. And be good sports or we’ll start the next practice with
wind sprints,” he warned, giving Lucy a private smile over the boys’ heads.
“See, Little League can be fun,” said Pam,
beginning to gather up her things. “Don’t forget the service tomorrow. It’s at
two o’clock, and everybody’s invited to Fred and Annemarie’s afterward. You won’t
want to miss it. Ted says it’s going to be the funeral of the century.”
Older girls—black
mascara, blue eye shadow.
Lucy spent Sunday morning in an agony of
indecision. What does one wear to the funeral of the century, especially if one
is pregnant and has a limited wardrobe to choose from? Lucy finally eliminated
the denim jumper, deciding it was too casual. That left a silky gray polyester
dress with rather frivolous puffed sleeves.
Expecting a baby didn’t mean she wanted to
dress like one, she thought, staring at her reflection in the dressing table
mirror. Oh well, she consoled herself, at least it didn’t have an arrow
pointing to her midsection proclaiming
baby
in large letters.
That was about all she could say for
herself, she decided. She had never been so dissatisfied with her appearance.
Her face was puffy and splotched and her hair, usually a neat, shining cap, was
getting harder and harder to manage. No matter how she tried, she seemed unable
to control her appetite, and she hated to think how much she’d gained. She
looked like a blob.
Turning from the mirror, she noticed the
albums stacked neatly on the blanket chest. With one thing and another, she
hadn’t had a chance to look through them. Perching on the edge of her bed, she
carefully turned the brittle pages filled with newspaper announcements,
programs for dance recitals, and cast photographs.
A yellowed newspaper photo of five-year-old
Caro as an angel in a dancing school production of
Hansel and Gretel
made
her smile. Other clippings indicated she’d attended dancing classes in Boston
throughout her childhood, right up until her graduation from the Brookline
Country Day School. She hadn’t gone to college after graduation, but instead
went to New York, where she performed with the Joffrey Ballet and studied with
Martha Graham. Eventually she also performed with the Graham company.
The latter pages of the album were filled
with original mimeographed programs for the annual student performances at
Winchester College. Scattered among the memorabilia Lucy found wedding
invitations and birth announcements from Caro’s students, as well as newspaper
clippings announcing their various triumphs.
One year the students had pooled their
funds and bought Caro a pair of diamond earrings. The card they gave her, which
pictured a Degas sketch of three dancers, was carefully preserved. Inside
someone had written, “Those beautiful arabesques on points, / How they give us
a pain in our joints! / Even though you constantly pull us apart, / We have
only an abundance of love in our hearts.”
Lucy chuckled, gently closed the book, and
sat holding it in her lap. She felt just a little bit like a voyeur; she hadn’t
expected the albums to be quite so revealing. From what she knew about Caro she
would never have expected her to be so sentimental.
Lucy had a memory book herself. It was
filled with souvenirs from her early childhood and high school years. But once
she’d started college she’d stopped adding to it. Now it was in the bottom of a
trunk shoved way in the back of a closet. She’d become so busy living her life
that she hadn’t had any time to record it for posterity, except for snapshots
and videos.
Caro, on the other hand, had devoted a good
deal of time and care to this collection, and she kept it near at hand in the
coffee table drawer. Maybe someday I’ll spend my days looking at old photos of
the kids, thought Lucy, standing up and smoothing her skirt. Maybe not, she
thought, thinking of her mother, who had joined the outing club at her
retirement community and was so busy that she recently forgot to send Bill a
birthday card.
Glancing at the clock, Lucy realized she
was in danger of being late for the funeral. She quickly slipped a black blazer
over the dress and decided it seemed to improve matters. She couldn’t button
it, of course, but even left open it added a touch of sophistication. Her black
pumps, tight when she bought them last fall before she became pregnant, were
hopeless. She had no choice but to make do with a pair of black Birkenstocks
and tights.
“Lucy,” said Sue, opening her front door, “you
can’t possibly wear those Birkenstocks.” It was only June, but Sue already had
a golden tan and looked terrific in a black linen coat dress.
“I’m pregnant,” she snapped. “My feet are
swollen. I want to be comfortable and I don’t have anything else that fits
except my Reeboks.”
“Oh, well,” said Sue. “Let’s go. Maybe no
one will notice.”
It was only a short walk from Sue’s house
to the white-steepled clapboard community church. A steady stream of people
were making their way up the steps, and the pews were almost full when Sue and
Lucy arrived. That meant they were seated at the back and didn’t have to turn
around and crane their necks to see who else was there, as so many people in
the front were doing.
Since hardly anyone had fond memories of
Morrill Slack, or anything at all nice to say about him, the family had wisely
asked Dr. Churchill to limit the service to a simple reading from
The Book
of Common Prayer.
Lucy found the words oddly appropriate.
“In the morning it is green, and groweth
up; but in the evening it is cut down, dried up, and withered,” intoned the
minister. Lucy couldn’t imagine Morrill Slack as a fresh, limber youth, but he
had certainly labored and sorrowed and shriveled, and now he was gone. And, as
the book noted, he had heaped up riches and he would not know who would gather
them. Or how they would be spent.
In the front pew, Lucy observed, the Slack
family were models of decorum. Fred, uncharacteristically somber in a dark
suit, sat between his mother and his wife. With his broad shoulders and solid
frame, he was a reassuring presence. Ben, on the other hand, was clearly
uncomfortable in a navy blazer that was a shade too small for him, and fidgeted
restlessly in his seat, earning a warning stare from his mother. Kitty didn’t
notice; she seemed to be in a world of her own.
Dr. Churchill augmented the service with
several old hymns, supposedly favorites of Morrill’s. Lucy enjoyed the thunderous
chords of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and the somewhat gentler strains of “Faith
of Our Fathers.” The service concluded with “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” and
the tune was still ringing in her ears as, duty done, she joined the procession
of mourners marching down the street to Fred and Annemarie’s house for the
glass of sweet sherry and slice of pound cake customary after a Tinker’s Cove
funeral service. She would skip the sherry.
“I’m so sorry,” murmured Lucy, taking Fred’s
hand.
“Well, we have the comfort of knowing he
didn’t suffer,” said Fred, passing her along to Annemarie.
“And he lived a very full life,” added
Annemarie, taking her hand and passing her on to her mother-in-law, Kitty.
“And a very long life,” nodded Kitty. “Lucy,
thank you for coming. I do hope you will stay and have something to eat and
drink.”
“It’s an open bar,” whispered Sue, pointing
to a table set up at the back of the hall, under the stairs. It was manned by a
white-jacketed bartender.
“I’m not supposed to,” said Lucy, patting
her tummy.
“A little glass of white wine couldn’t
possibly do any harm,” coaxed Sue.
“All right,” agreed Lucy, succumbing to
temptation. “A small Chablis,” she told the bartender, who proffered a
generously filled wineglass.
The two women sipped their wine and
strolled across the hall to the archway leading into the dining room, where
they supposed the pound cake would be. There they stopped, amazed.
“I’ve seen this sort of thing in magazines,”
began Lucy.
“But not in Tinker’s Cove!” concluded Sue.
Every surface in the room was covered with
lavish displays of food. Shrimp, spread on a bed of ice, spilled from a crystal
cornucopia set on the sideboard. Chafing dishes filled with scallops wrapped in
bacon, Swedish meatballs, and Chinese chicken wings were set alongside. There
was a collection of cheeses, surrounded by thinly sliced breads and assorted
crackers.
“Look at the centerpiece,” whispered Sue,
giving her a nudge. An entire poached salmon dominated the mahogany table,
completely covered with cucumber-slice scales and coated with glistening
gelatin. A black olive filled the creature’s eye, and a strip of pimiento
outlined his mouth.
“I wonder who the caterer was?” said Sue. “Someone
from Portland?”
“I think Annemarie did it herself. I saw
her at the IGA with carts and carts of groceries. It must have cost a fortune,”
said Lucy.
Deviled eggs, cold meats of every
description, including a whole ham and a roast turkey, were also set out, as
well as bowls of dip and generous piles of crudités. Entire lettuces, fans of
Chinese pea pods, and artfully curled scallions completed the display.
“Are they mourning the old guy’s death, or
celebrating it?” asked Lucy, under her breath.
“A little bit of both,” said Sue, grinning
wickedly. “It’s a black-and-white cake.”
A small drop-leaf table stood by the
doorway leading into the library, and the sweets had been placed there. In
addition to the checkerboard cake, which magically combined devil’s food and
yellow cake in a pattern of squares, there were platters of cream puffs and éclairs,
and heaping plates of cookies. Pyramids of whole fruits, including pineapples
and bananas, created a backdrop against which slices of kiwi and mounds of
berries were piled.
“Grab a plate, Lucy,” urged Sue. “You’re
holding up the line.”
It was only later, when she’d found a seat
in the living room and was nibbling at the plate of food she didn’t really
want, that Lucy had a chance to look around. She had never been in Fred and
Annemarie’s house before and she was frankly curious.
“This place looks like a furniture store,”
said Sue. “That’s Colefax and Fowler chintz on the windows, in case you didn’t
know.”
“I know,” said Lucy. “And you’re sitting on
a Braunschwig
et
Fils
tapestry chair, in case
you
didn’t know.”
Sue jumped up. “You’re right. And this rug?
I think it’s silk.” She tapped the gorgeous Oriental with her black
patent-leather sandal.
Everything in the expensive and tastefully
furnished rooms appeared brand new, and the effect was oddly impersonal. Lucy
thought of her own house, where a mix of flea market finds and antiques was
usually overlaid with scattered Barbie dolls. Or
Barney’s house, where his huge recliner and
TV dominated the living room. In Pam Stillings’ house, newspapers and magazines
cluttered the horizontal surfaces, and the walls were papered with the children’s
artwork. Even Sue, who decorated her house as carefully as she dressed herself,
displayed whatever she was currently collecting. Recently, the teddy bears and
Saint Nicks had disappeared, Lucy noticed, and had been replaced by a growing
assortment of cookie jars and silly salt and pepper shakers.
“Do you think I could get a peek at the
upstairs if I ask to use the bathroom?” asked Sue, echoing Lucy’s own thoughts.
“Bring me back a report,” Lucy whispered.
She was content to stay in the chair, allowing her strained digestive processes
to work and indulging in a little people-watching. As her gaze flitted from
face to face, she wondered if Morrill Slack’s killer was among the crowd
filling the house. According to Miss Tilley, there were plenty of people in
Tinker’s Cove who had a score to settle with Morrill.
Although there was no lack of suspects,
Lucy found her gaze returning again and again to Annemarie. What makes her
tick, wondered Lucy as she watched Annemarie move from guest to guest.
Annemarie plumped up a pillow and tucked it behind old Mrs. Humphrey, she made a
little plate of sweets for Adele Delaporte to save her the trouble of getting
up when her arthritis was so bad, and she gently teased selectman Hancock Smith
about his entirely mythical sex appeal, pleasing him no end. Annemarie seemed
to strike the right chord with everyone. Today, however, the dazzling smile was
strained. Probably because of her son, Ben, thought Lucy. The boy must be
facing some sort of charges for the incident in Gilead. Come to think of it,
although Ben had sat with his family at the service, he seemed to have made
himself scarce immediately afterward— he was nowhere to be seen at the
reception.
“Lucy, can I get you something?” asked
Fred, hovering over her.
“Oh, no. I’ve eaten far too much.
Everything was so delicious.”
“Annemarie did it all,” he said proudly. “She’s
a terrific cook, just like her mother. A real Italian mama. Loves to feed
people.” He sat down in the chair Sue had vacated. “You know, Lucy, I’m awfully
sorry you had to be the one who discovered my father. It must have been a
dreadful shock, especially in your condition.”
“It was,” admitted Lucy. “But there haven’t
been any ill effects. I’m really very sorry about your father,” she added
politely.
“Well, it was dreadful to lose him so
suddenly,” sighed Fred. “I hope Mom has some time to really enjoy life.” He
looked across the room at his mother, newly fashionable in a navy blue
Chanel-style suit and salon hairdo, and smiled encouragingly at her. There was
real love in the gesture, thought Lucy.
