by B. T. Lord
Snatches of images sputtered through his brain – seated at the bar in Fiske’s, chatting up the waitress. He had a vague memory of leaving with someone. Was it a woman? Was it one of the locals who’d offered to drive him home? A face danced in and out of the edge of his conscious mind, but it remained just out of reach. After that, it was all a blank.
He passed a trembling hand over his mouth as a terrifying thought occurred to him. Had someone put something in his drink, driven him out to the beach and dumped him here, hoping high tide would do the rest?
Had someone tried to kill him?
Shaking with cold, his wet clothes clinging to his skin, he tried to stand, but fell back down. He’d never felt anything like this before. Jeez, maybe he had been drugged after all. But why? Why would someone want to do that to him?
It hurt too much to figure it out. The sky merged with the sand as it spun around him, making him nauseous again. If he had any chance of avoiding pneumonia or worse, having whoever dumped him here return to make sure they succeeded, Andrew slowly and methodically crawled along the beach until he reached the cliff wall. There, he leaned against the rock as he pulled himself to his feet.
Concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, he focused on making it to the house. With each step, he grew more certain that he’d been drugged. He’d had more hangovers than he cared to admit to, but none of them were like this. He felt as though he wasn’t quite in his body, even as it shook uncontrollably from the cold.
He hauled himself up the metal stairs, stopping every few steps to catch his breath. His misery was compounded when it started to drizzle, and the wind picked up. God, how he hated that damp, bone numbing cold that came up off the ocean. How did people live here year-round? Always cold, always wet, always surrounded by fog and mist. When he got home, he was booking himself a flight to the warmest place he could find.
After what seemed like hours, Andrew finally made it to the cottage. Anxious not to face the almost certain censure of his mother if she saw him in this condition, he managed to sneak around the back of the house, slip in through the kitchen door and sneak upstairs to his room. He breathed a sigh of relief as he shut the door behind him. It took a few moments to make his frozen fingers work well enough to fumble out of his clothes. He managed to get his shirt off, but he fell back on the bed as he tried his best to peel off his soaking jeans.
Yanking them off as hard as he could in angry frustration, a piece of paper fluttered onto the floor. He picked it up and glanced at the writing.
It was a receipt from Fiske’s. Its owner, Keith Larson was a gravelly voiced, beefy built man who allowed Andrew to keep a running tab which he made sure to pay off at the end of every week. The receipt showed that he’d spent close to $200.00 on liquor the night before. It wasn’t the amount that worried him – that was his typical bar tab. It was what was on the bottom. Keith was scrupulously honest, making sure Andrew always signed the bar tab at the end of the evening. He saw his name scribbled on the receipt. What worried him was that the signature wasn’t in his handwriting.
“Damn it,” he whispered under his breath.
What the hell happened last night?
It wasn’t unusual for him to buy everyone a round of drinks. But he couldn’t abide being taken advantage of. He needed to get to the bottom of this. First things first, however. He had to take a hot shower that would hopefully clear his still muddled mind and warm his frigid body.
The scalding shower worked. By the time he threw on a dry pair of clothes, he was no longer shaking and the fogginess in his brain was gone.
He sat down on the edge of his bed, grabbed his cellphone from the nightstand and dialed Fiske’s. Keith answered the phone.
“Hey Keith, it’s Andrew Munson.”
There was a palpable coldness on the other end of the line. “What do you want?” Keith asked.
Andrew was taken aback. In all the years he’d been going to Fiske’s, he’d always gotten along with Keith.
“I’m calling about last night,” he replied.
“Andrew, I make it a policy never to pass judgment on my customers. If I did, I wouldn’t have any. But I think it best if you never come back here again.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Are you trying to tell me you don’t remember?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” He heard the doubt seeping through the phone. “I swear to you, Keith. I remember arriving there at six pm and ordering my usual vodka and tonic. The next thing I remember, I’m waking up this morning on the beach beneath the family house.” Andrew took a shuddering breath and forced himself to ask, “I think I was drugged. I think somebody put something in my drink. I vaguely remember leaving with someone, but I can’t remember who it is. I’m hoping you could tell me.”
“You left with nobody. I know because I ordered you out of the bar and walked you to your car to make sure you left. As for someone slipping you a mickey…” He snorted. “The only ones in last night were the locals. They’d have no reason to spike your drink.”
Andrew stood up and crossed to the window. He looked out as his heart began to beat faster. “What happened?” he whispered. “I need to know.”
There was a pause, then a deep sigh. “About an hour after you arrived, you suddenly started ordering single malt whiskey.” Andrew felt sick. He hated single malt whiskey. It always made him queasy and he never touched it. “A change came over you. You became belligerent and insulting. You frightened Mags.” Mags was the middle-aged waitress who’d worked at Fiske’s for years. She was one of those women who’d seen it all and didn’t frighten easily. In fact, she was the one who usually did the frightening.
“What did I do?”
“It wasn’t what you did, it’s how you changed. Your voice became deeper. Your face didn’t look like your face. You became a real-life version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. You spooked her, man. You spooked all of us. For what’s it’s worth, my advice to you is to get help. Don’t ever touch a drop of whiskey again and get yourself enrolled in Alcoholics Anonymous. You were fortunate someone didn’t take a swing at you last night to shut you up. You were whaling away on everyone. Next time you may not be so lucky.”
“Keith, did I sign off on the bar tab last night?”
“Of course, you did. Are you accusing me of signing it?”
“No, no. It’s just that—”
“Get some help, Andrew. I mean it.”
Andrew flinched as Keith slammed down the phone. He watched the rain drops weave a path along the windowpane as he began to shake again. This time the cold had nothing to do with it. He tried his best to remember the night before, but he couldn’t. It was a complete blank. He snatched up the receipt and stared at his signature. Damn it, if he was as drunk as Keith said, his handwriting should be a mess. But it wasn’t. The signature was written in an old fashioned cursive flow that he hadn’t seen except in history books.
Andrew pulled a trembling hand through his hair. He sank down at the edge of the bed and tried once more to remember something – anything. He stared down at the phone in his hand as his mind worked furiously to bring up anything that could help him recall the night before. Through the frenzied thoughts, one stood out. One that made his blood run bold.
He held up his cell. He never went anywhere without it. It was a running joke in the family that he was surgically attached to his phone.
So why did I leave it here last night?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Taking advantage of the fact that everyone in Clarke County knew about the hatchet and the skeleton, Rick called Doug MacMunn, the owner and editor of the Twin Ponds Gazette and asked that he write an article asking for information on any men between the ages of 40 and 50 who might have gone missing in the late 1940s up until 1955.
It succeeded too well. The phones started ringing off the hook as suggestions poured in. He had to call in the part-time deputies to help follow up on all information received, includin
g one from the ninety-year old, self-proclaimed witch of Twin Ponds, Cora Cameron, who insisted the skeleton was what was left of a certain Mel Walker after an alien probe gone bad. It was Emmy who discovered that when Cora and Mel were teenagers, he’d left her for another girl.
“Jeez, can that woman carry a grudge, or what?” Rick said when Emmy shared her findings.
During his rounds, the deputy was bombarded with questions, but there was nothing he could, or would divulge. Some of the townspeople were upset he wouldn’t spill the beans, but, as he tried to explain, it was standard operating procedure. “I don’t want to give out any information that may prove to be wrong. Don’t worry, as soon as we get some concrete facts, I’ll be sure to let everyone know.”
He wasn’t sure he was believed, but it was all he had.
However, it didn’t stop the phones at HQ from persistently ringing. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore and jumped out of his chair.
“I’ve got to get out of here before I develop tinnitus from these damned phones. I’m gonna grab some lunch at Zee’s. You want anything?”
“I brought a sandwich. Thanks anyway.”
“Hank should be here soon. If it gets too crazy, just ignore the calls until he shows up.”
“Will do.”
He slipped out the back door and chuckled when he remembered how Cammie had once been forced to sneak through the back streets in order to avoid the townspeople when Eli Kelley was murdered the year before. He’d laughed at what he’d considered her theatrics, but now he understood her reasoning. He took it one step further and called Zee’s to order the pastrami on sour dough ahead of time. He planned to sneak into the Bar and Grille through the back door, grab the lunch and leave again like a phantom.
James Bond would be proud.
He was practically salivating when he arrived at Zee’s. Being Acting Sheriff was hard work and he was ravenous. He found Zee in the kitchen waiting for him. In his hand, he held a bag containing Rick’s lunch.
“Thanks, Zee,” he said as he went to grab it. However, Zee snatched it out of his grasp.
“Hold on there. I need to talk to you.”
Rick moaned. “Are you honestly holding my lunch hostage to get information about the hatchet and the skeleton? I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to –”
“Save the police mumbo jumbo,” Zee said. “The fact is, I may be able to help you identify the skeleton.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. So sit down and hear me out.” The two sat in the kitchen as the large round man who bore an uncanny resemblance to Santa Claus kept the bag just out of reach. “I saw the article in the Gazette and it got me thinking. As you may remember, my dad ran this place before I inherited it. When I read the article, I recalled Dad talking about a man by the name of Miles Mynter. He’d been a soldier during WWII and came back a changed man. Before the war, he was happy go lucky. In fact, Dad always said Miles reminded him of a young Jimmy Stewart. However, whatever he saw over in Europe affected him so much that when he returned home, he was no longer the carefree easygoing young man. He was angry and bitter and forever picking fights with people. During town meetings, Miles picked apart the selectmen. He enjoyed tearing them a new one in front of the whole town. It became a spectator sport to see what Miles was going to come up with next to insult them. Sometimes what he said was spot on. But mostly, he just liked to stir up trouble for the sake of trouble. He loved nothing more than to humiliate the mayor and his council.”
“So why do you think this might be our victim?” Rick asked, hungrily eying the paper bag that Zee had put on the table behind him.
“Miles may have been a major SOB, but he was an excellent architect. Everyone agreed he was worth putting up with because of his beautiful and practical designs. Dad wanted to put in the poolroom out back. He asked Miles to come down to the Bar and Grille to discuss the plans. Now Miles was a stickler for meetings. He always turned up earlier than scheduled. Dad was here an hour before the meeting was to take place, but Miles never showed up. In fact, no one ever saw Miles again. I remember Mom and Dad discussing it occasionally when I was growing up. Dad jokingly referred to Miles as Twin Ponds’ version of D.B. Cooper, the guy who jumped out of a plane in 1971 and was never seen again.”
“Did the police investigate his disappearance?” Rick asked, calculating the level of difficulty in tackling Zee to the ground and grabbing his lunch.
“I’m pretty sure they must have. But to be honest, Miles was just as hard on the police as he was on the selectmen. I wouldn’t be surprised if the sheriff at the time didn’t over exert himself looking for him.”
Rick stood up and reached for the bag. “Well, that’s very interesting, Zee—”
“I’m not done yet,” the big man said as he once again pulled the bag away from Rick’s reach. “The reason I’m thinking Miles may be your skeleton is because he owned one of those starter homes three doors down from the Graham house. That’s three doors down from where you found the hatchet. I know he disappeared sometime in the early 1950s.”
“Wow, Zee, that’s great information. I’ll have Emmy check into it as soon as I get back to HQ.” He made a grab for the bag and this time he nailed it.
Returning to the office, he told Emmy what Zee had disclosed.
“Gosh, wouldn’t it be great if Mr. Mynter is our victim.” She immediately picked up the phone and dialed. “Hi Mr. MacMunn, this is Emmy Madachuck. I was hoping you could look in your records for any stories the Gazette may have published on a man named Miles Mynter. He was an architect who disappeared sometime in the early 1950s. Thanks!” She hung up and walked across to the front door where she grabbed her coat from the coat rack. “While Mr. MacMunn is looking that up, I’m going to see Edwina. I couldn’t find anything on the computer.”
“Be careful. She’s in manic mode.”
“I will.”
After she’d left, Rick dove into his lunch and devoured it in record time. Popping open the small bag of chips Zee had thrown in, he thought about Miles Mynter. If the skeleton did prove to be Miles, it was probably one of the hundreds of people he ticked off that did him in. It would be difficult discovering who that needle in the haystack was, but he was close. He could feel it. Once again, he envisioned himself sitting in an open convertible, waving at the crowds gathered to cheer on the hero who’d solve their version of the crime of the century. Why, he might even get a mention when the history of Twin Ponds was written. His name would be enshrined in the history books for his children and his children’s children to marvel at.
The phone rang, breaking into his wonderful daydream. Beaming from ear to ear at the thought of the town declaring the day he solved the crime Rick Belleveau Day, he picked up the receiver.
“Forget Mel Walker,” Cora’s voice rang out. “I just did an Unveil the Truth spell. Always tells me what I want to know. Your skeleton belongs to Brophy Wallis. He was a time traveler I met back in 1975. The boy was always jumping time. I told him to cut it out, but you know how it is. He loved the adrenaline rush of skipping through the centuries. He must have gotten stuck in one of those cosmic doorways and whammo – instant skeleton.”
“You don’t happen to have a disappearing spell, do you?”
“Why?”
Rick sighed. “Oh, just wishful thinking.”
A few hours later, Emmy returned with a handful of files in her arms.
“How did you survive Edwina’s hysteria?” he asked as he helped her pile the folders on her desk.
“Easy. I told her it wasn’t her fault the file went missing. It was, in all probability, taken by the killer to hide his or her tracks.”
“She believed you?”
Emmy raised an eyebrow. “Of course, she believed me. It makes perfect sense.” She took off her coat and hung it up. “Besides, even if it didn’t, I had to do something. The poor woman looks as though she hasn’t slept in weeks. She’s taken the disappearance of the file very seriously. I think my words manag
ed to calm her down.”,
She sat at her desk and opened up the first file. “The sheriff at the time of Mr. Mynter’s disappearance was Otis O’Day. Contrary to what Zee said, he and his men did try their best to find Mr. Mynter. They interviewed everyone he knew, including all his neighbors and the board of selectmen, but they got nowhere. The investigation is still open as a matter of fact. It’s all in here if you want to take a look.” She placed the file aside and picked up another one. “This one contains twenty-five complaints lodged against Mr. Mynter.” Emmy shook her head to herself. “He really wasn’t the nicest of people. He called the then mayor a corrupt midget while accusing one of the selectmen of being a liar and a hypocrite.”
“Corrupt midget?”
“Uh huh.” She withdrew a third file and removed an old photo which she held up for Rick to see. It showed two men, dressed in 1950s era suits looking into the camera. “The short man on the left is Mayor Clemson.”
“He looks tiny next to the other guy.”
“Edwina says the second gentleman was the town vet. He stood close to six feet.”
She replaced the photo and went back to the second file. “One of Mynter’s neighbors wanted him arrested for harassment. While cutting down a tree on their property, they accidentally lopped off a branch from a tree on Mr. Mynter’s property. Although it was just a branch and didn’t threaten the health of the tree in any way, he went nuts. He began to bombard them with nasty letter and phone calls, telling them he was going to sue them for everything they had. Eventually he calmed down, but not before making a complete nuisance of himself. They weren’t the only ones either who suffered from his temper.”