Boston Scream Murder

by Ginger Bolton

  Smell? Ewwww. “No, but I didn’t expect to.”

  I took them past the canoe’s hiding spot to where it had been dragged off the trail and into the woods. “It’s up there, behind the boulder and beyond those cedars.”

  “I’ll go look.” Gartborg stepped carefully between snapped-off plants and eased around the cedars.

  Brent stayed with me. He snapped pictures with his phone, opened his notebook, and drew a diagram of the paths and the location of the boulder. “Did you notice any marks or labels on the canoe on Royalson’s dock Monday evening, Em?”

  “No, and I didn’t go closer to this one than this side of those cedars, so I couldn’t see all of this canoe. or touch it.”

  Gartborg returned to us. “I took pictures. There are traces of mud on the bottom and a twig is caught on the inside where the yoke is attached. No one’s underneath it.”

  I restrained a shudder. I hadn’t thought about the possibility that anyone—dead, alive, or somewhere between—could be underneath the canoe.

  “But,” she added, “the ground under it is trampled as if someone or something might have been sleeping there.” She agreed with me that the paddle resembled the ones we’d seen at Royalson’s cottage. She and Brent strung crime scene tape around the boulder and the trees surrounding the canoe.

  While Brent was on his phone arranging for forensics investigators to investigate the scene, I told Gartborg about the cove I’d noticed while kayaking. “The canoe could have been brought from the road, but the way it appears to have been dragged uphill and into the woods at an angle from the trail, I suspect it was pulled out of the lake onto a stony little beach down there.” Trees screened the view of the lake and the cove.

  Gartborg pointed out, “So those tire tracks beside the road might mean nothing.”

  “Getaway car?” I suggested.

  Brent had finished his call and had his own theory. “Or the canoe was brought here on a vehicle, launched into the lake down there, brought back to the same spot, dragged into the woods, and abandoned.”

  Gartborg asked me, “Can you show us where you think the canoe might have been pulled ashore?”

  I led both detectives down to the small beach with the grooves in the mud and the colorful streaks on the rocks.

  Gartborg’s phone rang. She answered it, listened for a moment, and asked into it, “Have you checked her home and the bank where she works? Not at either place? Keep looking.”

  Chapter 14

  Gartborg disconnected and turned to Brent. “They still haven’t found Estable.”

  Terri was missing? Remembering Derek and his rage, I shivered in something like horror.

  No wonder Gartborg had checked underneath the canoe.

  “I need to use the computer in the cruiser,” she said. “Meet you back there, Brent? Can you tape this off?”

  “No problem. And if you need to drive somewhere, I’ll hitch a ride back with Emily.”

  Gartborg gave him a funny look as if to say I couldn’t be trusted, but she only said, “Okay.” She strode away, up the pathway and out of sight into the woods.

  I held the roll while Brent strung the yellow police tape around trees. No trees were right next to the water, so we weren’t going to be able to completely tape off the beach from the lake. I offered, “You can borrow my kayak and position yourself offshore to keep people away from this little beach.”

  He squinted at the lake. “Your kayak would be a tight fit for me. Fortunately, the crowds of possible gawkers are small.”

  I grinned at his dry humor. As far as I could see, no one was on Lake Fleekom. “You should have come kayaking with me. Lake Fleekom isn’t huge or wavy, but it’s wild in places and interesting.”

  “And kayaking would have been more fun than what I was doing. Plus I might have learned more out here with you than we did inside Royalson’s house. I might have discovered the canoe before you did. Thanks for calling about it.”

  “You’re welcome.” I unspooled more tape for him. “You didn’t find clues about who might want him out of their way? No angry e-mails or letters, no lawsuits or disputes?”

  “We’re nearly done searching his house and cottage. We’ve taken his computer, phone, and other devices plus the files from his filing cabinet, and will thoroughly check them, but so far we have no answers.”

  “Do you have any guesses how the canoe could be connected with his death?”

  “Do you?”

  “What if the murderer decided to take advantage of the mist on the lake that morning? What if he knew about Rich’s canoe, drove to about where my car was when you got here, parked, and walked or jogged to Rich’s cottage? It’s kind of far.”

  Brent reached for the reel of tape. “It’s probably less than a half mile. It’s about a quarter mile from here to the county beach, and Rich’s cottage is about a quarter mile from there. It’s not far for someone who is fit, and there was probably no one else around to see him or her. Visibility on the road might not have been great at the time. The fog could have been denser and higher than it was when you arrived. Also, we don’t know when that canoe was taken off the dock. It could have been while it was still dark, anytime after you and Nina saw it, if it’s the same one.” He cut the tape and knotted the end around a tree. “We’ll have to ask if anyone saw a vehicle parked out there where you found the tire prints.” Holding the roll of tape at his side, he gazed toward the water.

  I eased into the familiarity of brainstorming with him. “Whether it was dark or light, the murderer could have gotten himself to Rich’s cottage without being seen. He probably intended to adjust his plans if he thought anyone noticed him. He threw stones until he broke the powder room window, then he crawled inside and grabbed the skillet. He ran out the back door without bothering to close it. After that, I’m guessing that he took a paddle from Rich’s cabinet and put the skillet into Rich’s canoe. Maybe he spent extra time at the cottage or in the canoe on the lake, waiting until he thought Rich was alone.”

  Brent tilted his head in question.

  “I found a place on the lake behind leaning junipers where he could have hidden himself and the canoe close enough to Rich’s house that he could have seen and heard people, despite the mist.”

  Brent gave me one of those slow smiles that warmed me to my toes. “We’ll have to bring our kayaks out here and you can show me.”

  “As soon as we’re both free.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  Thinking aloud, I developed more of my theory. “If things happened when they were supposed to according to Rich’s to-do list, the murderer could have seen Terri paddle away and heard the catering truck leave. Then he could have guessed correctly, or maybe he had seen the to-do list and knew, that no one was with Rich. He paddled the rest of the way to Rich’s house and attacked Rich. Then he fled into the mist in the canoe. He must have known about this cove before he parked his car, and he had to have driven through that puddle after it had dried enough for the mud to hold a print. After he paddled back to this cove, he pulled the canoe ashore.” I pointed toward our feet. “He left grooves in the mud and aluminum on at least one rock.” I turned and stared up the pathway. “He dragged the canoe up into the woods and hid it where no one would be likely to notice it soon. Then he got back into his vehicle and drove away.”

  “You keep saying ‘he.’”

  “I’m picturing two different men. Terri’s ex-boyfriend, Derek, and Rich’s neighbor. I don’t know his name.”

  Brent supplied it. “Hank. Why do you suspect those two?”

  “Derek stayed in Rich’s cottage for five days. Hank lives on the lake and has a dock, so I assume he owns at least one boat. Both Derek and Hank could have paddled around this lake enough to know where they could drag a canoe ashore and hide it.” And now Terri is missing. I didn’t say it.

  Brent looked surprisingly relaxed, standing with his feet apart, holding the roll of crime scene tape, and watching a couple of ducks slant down ou
t of the sky and land on the water near where I’d seen the mallards earlier. He suggested, “If Derek murdered Rich, wouldn’t it have been simpler to drive to Rich’s, attack him, and drive away? Why bother with a canoe, especially to transport a heavy skillet?”

  “I think Derek was riding a motorcycle yesterday. A canoe in the mist is stealthier. And bringing that skillet in a canoe might not have been as awkward as hanging on to it on a motorcycle.”

  “Good point.”

  I looked up into a pine tree, but couldn’t see the bird crying like a scaled-down crow with a stuffed-up nose. “Could the tire prints in the mud near the road be from a motorcycle? I thought they were from one side of a four-wheeled vehicle, the back wheels following the front wheels, but not covering the prints completely because of the way the vehicle angled away from the shoulder and onto the road.”

  “They could be from a motorcycle, from a car, or from a small SUV or pickup. The prints might have nothing to do with the canoe that went missing from Rich’s cottage dock or the canoe that you found up there behind that boulder.”

  Glancing up the hill as if I could see the canoe from the beach, I sighed. “And the canoe might never have gone anywhere near Rich’s house on Tuesday morning. But if it did, the person who left the canoe in the woods would have needed a vehicle to get away.”

  Brent made a walking motion with his fingers. “Everything on this lake is within hiking distance of everything else. In addition to Rich’s and Hank’s houses, there are eleven recreational cottages, plus the county park and beach. He could have left his vehicle at any of those places, or even stayed for a while in one of the cottages.”

  “Did you check?”

  “Yes. There were no signs of occupants at any of them, and the only one that had been broken into was Royalson’s.” His lips thinned. “You said that Terri Estable showed up in a canoe shortly after you found the deceased.”

  “I saw her put the red canoe underneath the deck as if she knew that was where it belonged, or as if she knew it didn’t matter whether it belonged there or not. She could have known that Rich was never going to complain about it. If the red canoe originally came from that spot underneath the deck, Terri could have paddled it to his cottage and taken the skillet. Then she could have put that skillet into the aluminum canoe. One of her boots could have made the print I saw in the mud near the dock at Rich’s cottage. She could have paddled the aluminum canoe to his house and attacked him. That skillet’s heavy, but she’s athletic.”

  “Why would she switch canoes?”

  Watching water lap onto the beach, I imagined what Terri might have thought and done. “Maybe she didn’t want to risk harming the fiberglass canoe with that heavy skillet, or maybe she thought the grayish aluminum canoe would be less noticeable in the mist, or she didn’t want anyone to recognize the red canoe. Or she was hoping that someone would see and recognize the aluminum canoe and would blame someone else, particularly if that canoe did not belong to Rich. After she killed Rich, she could have hidden the aluminum canoe up there in the woods behind us and run back to Rich’s cottage and gotten into the red canoe. She could have paddled back to Rich’s house and acted surprised when I told her the party was canceled. She seemed upset when she heard sirens and realized that something bad could have happened, but she could have been acting. According to his list, Rich sent her away at ten twenty-eight, around the time the caterers arrived. The caterers left at eleven. Rich’s skin was cool but not cold when I found him at about noon. Whoever killed him must have done it almost as soon as the caterers left.”

  Brent looked directly into my eyes. “How do you know when the caterers left?”

  Fighting a blush was probably impossible, but I tried, anyway. “I went to their office this morning and talked to Cat.” I wanted to put my hand on his sleeve and assure him that it was okay, but I restrained myself. “I’d picked up one of their cards before I found Rich’s body. I wanted to order dessert for tomorrow night.”

  “Not donuts?”

  “We get a break from them once in a while. Also, I wanted to talk about possibly working together if Cat ever needed a birthday cake made of donuts or something like that. Or gourmet coffee.” I told him about the grudge Cat could have had against Rich. “But it hardly seems worth murdering over.”

  “Except to the murderer.” He looked toward the yellow tape tied between trees. It rippled in a breeze I couldn’t feel. “If the caterers committed the murder, they probably didn’t arrive and leave by canoe. And if the murderer was Terri or Hank, they could have simply done the deed, retreated into a house, and waited for someone to find Rich. They didn’t have to bother with canoes.”

  “But Derek might have found a canoe useful. Or maybe Terri or Hank knew they wanted the skillet from Rich’s cottage. Besides, the mist that morning gave them a handy way to disappear without risking being seen going from Rich’s tent into one of the houses. And there were those noises I heard like a paddle hitting an aluminum gunwale, which makes me believe that the aluminum canoe up there in the woods left the beach behind Rich’s house shortly before I arrived. Sounds seem to carry strangely over water and even more strangely in the mist, though, so I can’t be sure how far away the canoe was or what direction it was going. I thought it was being paddled farther away.” Glad that Brent was willing to listen to me instead of returning immediately to Gartborg after he finished taping off the beach, I added, “If Terri had anything to do with Rich’s murder, she could have worked with either Derek or Hank. Derek is quick to anger, as everyone in Deputy Donut noticed when he came in that time. Maybe Derek took Rich’s canoe and did the actual murder while Terri acted as a lookout. Also, Terri and Hank seemed to know each other well considering that Terri had just reconnected with Rich. Maybe Terri and Derek got Rich to will her everything, and now she’s working on getting Hank to fall for her and will her everything he owns. Terri and Derek will find another victim, and another, and . . .”

  Brent conceded, “Royalson’s will, especially his having signed it hours before he was murdered, makes Terri a prime suspect.”

  Folding my arms and hoping that Brent wouldn’t guess that I was chilly and he wouldn’t end our conversation, I asked, “What about the fact that she willed everything to him?”

  “That doesn’t make her look any less guilty, don’t you think? She must have known that Royalson made her his beneficiary. Besides, her net worth doesn’t compare to his. She owns a town house and a car and has some money in the bank, but not huge investments like he had.”

  “Wait. One other person knew about those wills. I didn’t pay much attention to the witness’s name when Detective Gartborg showed me the signed wills. Was it Henry somebody? As in ‘Hank’ can be a nickname for ‘Henry’?”

  “You got it. Royalson’s neighbor, Henry Ferrinder, witnessed both wills.” Brent was not dressed as warmly as I was, but he didn’t look cold. His feet were probably dry, though.

  In hopes of warming my toes, I wiggled them inside my sneakers. “The back of Hank’s house is nearly all windows. He could have kept a lookout while Terri murdered Rich.”

  “How do you know how the back of Hank’s house is constructed? Because of kayaking this afternoon?”

  “Yes.” I stared in that direction, but at least one treed point was between us and Rich’s and Hank’s houses. “The lake is small, so Hank can probably see most of it from his house or dock, but there are lots of places like this where someone in a boat can pull up onto or near the shore and hide.”

  Brent grinned down at me. “This is a great lake for kayakers and canoers, not so great for detectives.”

  Was Terri camping in the woods? Did she move to a closed-up cottage after they were checked for break-ins? Maybe she had found a key for one of them. Was she hurt, or worse? Hiding because she had murdered Rich? I asked, “Do you have enough evidence to arrest Terri? Her fingerprints must be everywhere, she was nearby, she had a motive, and one of her boots might have made that partial
footprint in the mud near Rich’s cottage dock.”

  “We do have more questions to ask her. After I took her initial statement, I told her not to leave town. Maybe she did, or maybe she’s another victim. I hope that’s not it. But to answer your question, no, we don’t have enough evidence to arrest her.”

  “Yet.”

  He echoed, “Yet.”

  “When did you or anyone last see her?”

  I thought he might not answer, but he did. “After I took her statement, she said she was going home. But as far as we know, she never made it.”

  “How did she get to Rich’s house? Did she drive her own car, or did Rich bring her?”

  “She drove there Monday afternoon. She said she wanted to make room for party guests, so early Tuesday morning, she parked her car on the road, around the curve beyond Hank’s place.”

  “Maybe she meant much farther beyond, like in that dried-up mud puddle up there beside the road.”

  “Could be.” He shot a piercing glance down at me. “You’re shivering, Em, and as nice as these woods and this lake are, I should get back to work. Unless we can wrap this case up quickly, I probably won’t make it to Samantha’s party tomorrow night.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be. If you hadn’t found that canoe, maybe we wouldn’t have as many variables to discuss, and I’d be able to take tomorrow evening off.”

  “But, but . . . the canoe was here, and it could be important, and maybe one of you would have found it, but later, making the investigation last even longer.”

  He squeezed my shoulder with one large, warm hand. “I’ll do everything possible to make it to your Halloween party on Saturday night.”

  “There will be donuts. And cider. And apple-cider donuts.”

  “I might have to dress up like a detective ducking out of work for an hour or so.”

  “I think you mean a detective taking a break so he can approach the crime with a fresh mind.”

  “I think I’ve been insulted.” Carrying the roll of yellow tape, he followed me up the pathway. I took my time and watched where I stepped, but I knew it would be easy to trample clues without knowing I was doing it.