The library was small and simple, basically one large room. But the elderly woman checking books in behind the desk gave us a friendly smile. “How can I help you?”
I introduced us. “We’re looking for information on the seventies communes here in Liberty. Especially the Bards on Stratford.”
Thankfully, like wonderful librarians everywhere, she didn’t ask why. But she did burst into laughter. “Now there’s a blast from the past. I haven’t thought about the Bards for ages.”
“Did you know them?” I studied the woman, who looked to be a little older than Grammie. Dressed in polyester slacks and a matching sweater set, she wore her hair in tightly permed curls.
“Not personally.” She made a rueful face. “But of course we all knew who they were. They were quite the characters and this is a very small town.”
“It is,” I agreed. “They’re all gone now, I suppose.”
To my surprise, she shook her head. “Not all of them. A woman still lives on the property. Mary Ellen Richards. Keeps sheep and spins the wool.” She pointed to an exhibit of handmade goods along one wall. “She made that fisherman knit sweater for our charity auction.” The piece was expertly crafted in thick ivory wool.
My heart began to beat a little faster. Not only was there someone left at the commune, she was active in town instead of an odd recluse, as I had feared. “Does she sell wool?” If so, there was a good pretext to break the ice. Plus Grammie liked handspun yarn.
The librarian nodded. “Probably. I’ve seen it in the gift shops and at the craft co-op.”
I took a deep breath. “I’d really like to talk to Mary Ellen. Can you give us directions?”
“I’ll do even better than that. I’ll draw you a little map.” She rapidly sketched out a diagram on scrap paper and handed it to me. Then she pursed her lips, looking us up and down. “You’ll need good footwear, which I see you have on. Oh, and watch out for Alfie.” The phone rang, a shrill and piercing warble that demanded her attention, so we didn’t have an opportunity to ask who or what Alfie was.
“Ready for an adventure?” I asked Madison outside the library. The directions looked fairly simple. We had to head down the road a couple of miles and look for a three-way intersection.
“Sure.” She pulled up a pants leg to reveal hiking sneakers. “I can’t wait to find out what we’re getting into.”
CHAPTER 23
Of the three choices at the intersection, Stratford Road was easily the worst. A battered, broken strip of tar led us through woods best defined as puckerbrush, former fields overgrown with spindly trees and shrubs. This land had been neglected for decades.
I took it slow, not wanting to be surprised by a vehicle speeding from the other direction. But we were the only ones venturing out here today, it seemed. Once in a while, an old abandoned cabin or trailer appeared in the woods, but that was all. On a small rise, birches grew out of a cellar hole, the remnant of someone’s dreams and hard work.
“How far out is the commune, do you suppose?” Madison asked as the road narrowed again, the tar giving way to dirt. Beverly jounced and swayed as we eased over ruts and rocks.
“I hope not too much farther,” I said. Up ahead, the ruts were deep and mucky, filled with water reflecting the sky. Deep enough to cover the axles. “Actually, I think we’d better park and walk.” The last thing I wanted to do was get stuck. Getting a tow truck out here would cost a fortune.
I pulled into a small byway, a spot big enough for several vehicles. We probably weren’t the only ones who had decided not to chance the road.
Madison threw open her door. “Now I understand what the librarian was saying about footwear.” She made a face as mud squelched under her shoes.
“No kidding.” Next challenge, meeting up with Alfie, whoever he was. I grabbed a couple of water bottles, my handbag, and phone, made sure Madison was all set, then locked the car. Probably no one would break in, but you never knew. I tossed Madison a bottle. “Ready when you are.”
We trudged up the road, dodging puddles and trying to stay out of the mud. The air was still and humid, the rays of the sun intense. Madison slapped at a buzzing mosquito circling her head. “Hey. These aren’t supposed to be out yet.”
I nodded at a stand of dead trees standing in water. “We’re in a swamp. So yes, mosquitoes.”
“Great,” she grumbled. “They’re probably carrying all kinds of diseases.” She slapped at another, giving a cry of satisfaction when she got it.
An evergreen and hardwood forest replaced the swamp. Under the shelter of the tall trees, the air was cooler and pine-scented. Pine needles covered the road.
“What’s that say?” Madison pointed to a faded sign nailed to a tree. The height of the board spoke to how long it had been there, fixed in place while the tree grew.
“‘All the World’s a Stage,’” I read, my spirits lifting at recognizing the Shakespeare quotation. “We made it. This is commune land.”
Excited, we picked up our pace. Soon another sign appeared, continuing the quote, “‘And All the Men and Women Merely Players.’” The next sign soon after read, “Welcome to the Bards of Stratford.” And below, “Leave Your Baggage at the foot of This Tree.” There was nothing there, of course, since they were probably referring to mental and emotional baggage.
I imagined young people arriving at the commune, eager to leave their mundane lives behind and begin a more creative, freer existence. For some, like Star, this alternative lifestyle hadn’t ended well. And now, forty years later, it seemed the property had a population of one human—and a flock of sheep.
A structure in the trees off to one side caught my eye. “Is that a tree house?” The tiny building sat in the crotch of a huge, ancient maple. Strips of wood rising up the trunk served as a simple ladder.
“Check it out.” Madison ran through the woods to the tree, tested the lowest rung, and started climbing, hands and feet flying.
I stayed where I was. This is how it was with us. She was the adventurous and coordinated one while I was awkward and scared of heights. At the top, she pushed open the door and went inside the house. In a moment, she reappeared, sitting in the doorway. “This is so cute. The roof is still good so it stayed dry.”
“That’s nice,” I said, my feet firmly planted on the ground.
She waved at me. “Come on. At least take a look.”
I could get up there no problem. But getting down again? That was the trick. I would have to turn around and dangle my legs, hoping my feet would find the ladder rungs. No, thanks.
A ferocious, snarling bark echoed in the woods, growing closer by the second. I amended the population count. Of course Mary Ellen owned a dog, living way out here alone. And by the sounds of it, the creature was hot on our trail. I liked dogs but this one sounded angry. “Move aside,” I called. “I’m coming up.”
The minuscule space was cute and cozy, with room enough for a double bed, I figured, and a cushion or two. Shelves ran around the wall, still holding a hideous hand-thrown mug and an ashtray, also in brown clay. “What are you doing?” I asked Madison.
She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, studying her phone. “Seeing if we have a signal. We might need to call for help.”
“Great.” I looked out one of the two windows, toward the barking. A huge mutt with fluffy black fur and a pit bull’s square head burst out of the woods. “Do you suppose that’s Alfie?”
No wonder we’d been warned. The mutt beelined to the maple and stayed there, leaping and barking and growling, as if we were bears he had chased up a tree.
“Go away,” I yelled. “Get out of here.” He didn’t pay a bit of attention, instead leaped again and scrabbled at the bark with his claws.
Another creature burst out of the bushes and darted our way, legs a blur. “Madison,” I said slowly. “What is that?”
She looked up from her phone. “That’s a pig. A really, really big pig.” Her mouth dropped open. “I don’t think I’ve ev
er seen one that large. Not even at the county fair.”
Now I had no idea which of these feral animals might be Alfie. I put my hands to my face. “Do you think it’s vicious?”
“I have no idea.” Madison looked troubled. “But Dad warned me never to get into a pen with a bunch of pigs.”
We were going to be spending the rest of our lives up here. Or until the pig and dog died of hunger and thirst, whichever came first. I almost fainted with relief when I spotted a man emerging from the same path the animals had used. He was hunch-shouldered, with long, tangled hair and a beard, dressed in filthy jeans and an equally disgusting red-and-black-plaid shirt, but to me he looked like a prince.
I went to the doorway and waved to get his attention. “Hey, there. Please call your animals off. We’re stuck up in the tree.”
He grinned, a flash of white in his thick beard, which was streaked with gray. “They scare you, did they?” He whistled and the dog stopped barking. Both animals ran to his side.
“Thanks so much,” I said. “We were just on the phone with our friends, telling them what’s up.” I said that just in case he was vicious too. But he looked friendly enough, even if he smelled of wood smoke and needed a long hot bath. And a haircut and shave.
He nodded, the grin widening. “Welcome to the Bards of Stratford, young ladies. I’m Alfie.”
Alfie was a man, not a dog or a pig. My relief drained away, replaced by trepidation. Why had the librarian warned us about him? I put my hand on my phone, debating what to do. A text dinged and I pulled it out. From Anton. No results yet but wanted you to know. Bevins’s given name is Alfred.
“Alfred Bevins?” I practically shouted. My relief at seeing him flip-flopped to fear.
The woodsman squinted up at us. “That’s me.”
“Madison,” I whispered, indicating she should come closer. “That man is Star’s old boyfriend. The one who might have … you know.”
Her eyes widened. “Seriously? Oh no. What are we going to do?”
“I have no idea.” I began texting. “One thing I can do is let Anton know we found him.” I sent a text giving the details, including our present location. I thought about asking him to send backup but decided that was a little over the top right now. Cellular network not available. Oh no. The two bars I had vanished.
“What’s all this ruckus?” a new voice asked. An older woman stepped out of the underbrush, long gray braids swinging. She held a long walking stick for traction on the forest floor. The dog left his post and went to greet her, tail wagging. The pig began rooting around in some ferns.
“Mary Ellen,” Alfie said. “Trooper and Bacon treed a couple of visitors.” He gave a deep and throaty chuckle.
The woman stomped along until she could get a good look at us. “Ahoy up there. You okay?” She wore a flannel shirt and jeans with a pair of worn work boots.
“We’re fine,” Madison said. “In fact we were on our way to talk to you, Mary Ellen.” She bestowed her most charming smile, the one with two dimples. “But I couldn’t resist exploring this darling little tree house.”
“She dragged me up here,” I chimed in. “And then the dog found us.” The creature in question stood quietly now, panting, harmless as a lamb.
“Come on down,” Mary Ellen said. “We’ll have tea up to the house.” She waited for us to slide down out of the tree. I was so freaked out about Alfie’s real identity I barely had time to be nervous about the descent.
Off we went, following a footpath through the trees, three women, a man, a dog, and a pig. When we reached an old trailer, Alfie peeled off with a mutter. But the animals stayed with us for a while, until they took off after a squirrel. Soon after the trees thinned, revealing rocky pastures dotted with sheep. A fairly large structure sat a short distance away, built of stone and weathered boards. Each of its many windows was a different size and shape, no doubt scavenged from other structures.
“That’s the main house,” Mary Ellen said. “Used to be twenty of us plus kids back in the day. Now it’s just me in the house. And my four-legged friends.” She turned to study us. “Where’d you say you were from?”
We hadn’t. “Blueberry Cove,” I said. “I’m Anne Buckley’s granddaughter. Do you know her by chance?” We were here to learn about Star but I wanted to ease into that discussion.
Mary Ellen shook her head. “Afraid not. But my sister lives down there. Margery Richards is her name.”
“Does she work at the drugstore?” I asked. Now that she said that, I saw a resemblance between the two. Mary Ellen’s skin was far more weather-beaten and wrinkled but she had the same elegant bone structure.
“She sure does.” Mary Ellen thumped her stick into the ground with a gleeful smile. “She still seeing that hunk Ted Perkins?”
I hid a smile at this description of Ted. Hopefully when I was in my seventies, people would still think of me as attractive. “I think she might be. We saw her going to his house, anyway.”
“You would have thought she’d give up by now,” Mary Ellen muttered. But this tidbit of gossip seemed to have lightened our hostess’s mood and she fairly bounced along, pointing out sights of interest. Her sheep were merinos, she said, producers of very fine wool. Extensive vegetable gardens and a hoop house provided plenty of food for her needs and the farmers market. She didn’t have electricity, but there was a solar panel and a windmill to provide power and pump water.
Inside the house, the space was rustic but comfortable, with lots of plants and cats. In the kitchen area, open shelves held glass jars full of dried herbs, pasta, grains, flour, and the like. The herbs reminded me of the jimsonweed. “Do you grow your own herbs?” I asked.
Mary Ellen moved cats off chairs so we could sit. “Sure do. You ever see the price of that stuff in the grocery store?” She filled a metal kettle from a tap and set it on an eight-burner gas range. She went to the shelves and pulled down jars, listing their contents, offering to let us smell the oregano and basil. They were much fresher than store bought.
“I teach classes on herb growing and making your own teas.” Mary Ellen next showed us several blends. “If you’re interested, let me know and I’ll put you on my email list.”
“Sign me up,” I said. Grammie might want to attend as well. “I’d like the raspberry lemon balm tea, please.” Madison chose that as well.
“Great choice. One of my favorites.” Mary Ellen scooped the leaves into metal tea balls and draped them in mugs, then added boiling water.
“All righty then,” she said, plunking down the mugs in front of us. She settled herself into a chair. “What brings you out here?”
Various options flicked through my mind. The yarn, an interest in the commune, we happened to get lost on Stratford Road. But in the end, I settled on the truth. “Did you hear about Star Moonshine?” I asked in a soft voice, in case Star’s death was a surprise.
Mary Ellen’s chin jerked up and she frowned. “Star? What about her?” Her tone was wary.
l glanced at Madison, who gave me a go-ahead gesture. “A few days ago, her body was found in the basement of a storefront in Blueberry Cove.”
Mary Ellen grunted in shock, her eyes flaring wide. “What happened?”
“She was murdered,” I said softly. “They don’t know who did it. Yet. They’re investigating though.”
Mary Ellen put a hand over her mouth with a groan. “Murdered?” she said after a long moment. “I can’t believe it. Star was such a sweetheart.”
“That’s what Grammie said. They were quite good friends.”
She pressed her lips together with a headshake. “I figured she was living somewhere all this time, had a family, even.”
“I’m afraid not,” I said. “It appears she died in seventy-two, around the Fourth of July.” I paused to let her absorb that. “When did you last see her?”
The older woman thought for a long moment, her lips working. Then she slapped the table and stood. “Let me check my daybook.” She shuffled
across the long room to packed bookshelves flanking the stone fireplace, which had a huge woodstove insert.
A small calico cat sat at my feet, mewing to come up. “All right,” I said, scooping him or her up. “I guess you can sit on my lap.”
“Cats always know a sucker,” Madison said. Then she flinched when a gray striped kitten climbed up her pants leg, purring like a motor. “Hello, baby,” she said, picking up the soft fluff ball and holding it to her face.
“Who’s the sucker now?” I asked with a laugh.
Mary Ellen selected a thin journal from a shelf and returned to the table. “Want her?” she asked Madison. “She has all her shots and she’s fixed.”
Madison and the kitten stared at each other for a long moment. Then Madison bit her lip and shook her head. “I really can’t. Sorry.” But she didn’t put the kitten down, I noticed, and soon the little darling was curled up on her lap.
After shrugging off Madison’s refusal, Mary Ellen began flipping through the pages of the book, mumbling to herself. She stopped and read more closely, then pushed the journal toward me. “Take a look.”
The book was open to January 1971, and each page covered a week, with notes jotted about harvest totals, illnesses, and money in and out. One such note said, “Star left for Blueberry Cove, with Gary.”
“Gary Ball?” I asked, pushing the book over so Madison could read the entry. This was an important clue. Star must have been quite deeply involved with Gary to leave town for him. Or maybe not. Could be that she was just trying to get away from Alfred Bevins.
Mary Ellen shrugged. “I have no idea. He was in a band, I remember. That’s how they met.”
“My grandfather was in that band, too,” I said. “The Sea Dogs.”
But the band name didn’t appear to spark any recognition. Mary Ellen sat with her chin propped on her hand, the other stirring her tea.
“Grammie told me Star used to be involved with Alfie. She said he was—” I reconsidered and said instead, “They had a volatile relationship.”
Mary Ellen nodded. “Alfie was a whole different person back then. Hot tempered, jealous, always getting in fights.” She rolled her eyes. “We wouldn’t have let him stay, except for one thing. His brother owned this property.”
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