A Bat in the Belfry

by Sarah Graves

  For now, anyway. Turning from the mirror, she dug into her duffel bag for her pink wool scarf. She wrapped the scarf around her neck, noting that a big slug of hot pink improved things immensely, then tucked the scarf ends into her jacket front.

  Suddenly she looked decent, if still not exactly ordinary. She made sure that the .38 auto was in her bag, that it was loaded and the safety was on. When she stepped outside, the glow of cop-car lights still pulsed redly on the night sky, only a few blocks distant. The faint but unmistakable sputter of a dispatch radio suggested that this might’ve been what the squad car was racing toward, on the road earlier.

  Damn, though. Because sure, it was interesting. But it could turn out very unhelpful; she’d planned to check in with local law enforcement first thing in the morning, introduce herself and see if anyone remembered her sister and Nicki. But now it looked as if the local cops might have plenty on their plates already.

  Still, she had nothing else to do. In the chilly drizzle, she crossed the motel’s parking lot and the empty street and headed uphill past an old red-brick library with tall arched windows and a cannon bolted to a concrete block set into its lawn.

  Ten minutes later, she was still walking; it was farther than she’d thought. But eventually a steep downhill stretch to a sharp right-hand curve brought her to within a half block of the bright white crime-scene lights set up in front of a church; two churches, actually, but only one was lit, the other, its near-twin, lurking half-visible in reflected glare from the first.

  Somewhere nearby, a man’s voice kept shouting something. A name, Lizzie realized, howled raggedly over and over. Then she noticed another man walking too, a dozen yards ahead of her, and where the hell had he come from?

  He hadn’t been there a moment ago. From between the houses lining the street, maybe, slipping out of a backyard …

  But then she caught herself. This was Eastport, not Boston. Probably the guy lived in one of the white clapboard houses, each with its bay window, tiny front yard, and gabled roof, that seemed to have multiplied like white rabbits here. Still …

  Tan slacks, light blue jacket, sneakers with some kind of a silvery reflecting logo on their heels; maybe she was being silly but she committed the details to memory anyway, along with his pale hair and the cautious way he slowed near the corner, as if he didn’t want to be seen by the people in front of the church.

  There was a rabbit’s foot on a chain dangling from his belt loop, she noticed. And then suddenly he was gone; frowning, she quickened her step, but he’d slipped away somewhere, into one of the dark, narrow yard areas between the houses, maybe, or behind one of them.

  But which one? She didn’t like not knowing where he’d gone; automatically her hand went to her bag to find her weapon as she paused under a streetlamp whose anemic glow was sickly yellow. Ahead stood more old houses, some dark and vacant-appearing but others with porch and multiple interior lights blazing, probably on account of all the activity around the church.

  You’d have to be deaf not to hear that guy yelling the same name over and over. And the lights made the church front resemble a movie set, the building’s massive white front rising up and up into the streaming mist.

  The shouting stopped. As she watched, a man dropped to his knees on the church’s front lawn, face in hands. Cop cars clogged the street and a small but growing crowd had gathered.

  Lizzie scanned the personnel inside the crime-scene tape, picking out a man with a medical bag and clipboard. A couple of guys in state cop uniforms conferred by the two big front doors, propped open with folding chairs so the scene lights illuminated a small foyer. A bulletin board on the foyer’s wall displayed the words BAKE SALE in green letters.

  A boxy white EMS vehicle backed up onto the lawn near the weeping man. The lights in the patient compartment were on but no one was inside; when the doors opened, Lizzie could see the vacant gurney with empty IV hooks dangling over it.

  She approached the lit-up scene until she reached the yellow tape barrier. The man on the lawn looked up desperately as if he might see—somehow, miraculously—what had been taken from him.

  A pang pierced her. He was probably the spouse, or parent, maybe, of whoever the victim was here, someone whose loved one would lie unceremoniously where they’d been found until all the photos and measurements and samples had been taken, the careful collection of evidence more important, now, than the empty husk of a human being.

  But not to him. His child, Lizzie guessed, certain she was correct. She’d seen that special hell before, on too many suddenly bereaved parents’ faces, to be mistaken. And not just on good parents’ faces, either; looking at the man again, she got the sense without quite knowing why that he was one of the ones who’d always planned to do better, someday.

  Yeah, someday, she thought bleakly. Someday never had arrived for her own dad, either, hers and Sissy’s; maybe that was why this guy in the churchyard seemed unpleasantly familiar in his over-the-top dramatic, it’s-all-about-me mourning style.

  It was how, she recalled very clearly, her dad had grieved for her mother. He’d been half in the bag in the intensive care waiting room at nine in the morning, wailing loudly and pounding the wall so that the hospital’s security officers had had to be called.

  An officer she hadn’t seen before came out of the church. Plump and pink-faced with thinning hair, he wore a blue uniform shirt that was almost all one big perspiration stain. Spotting the man on the lawn, he spoke sharply, and soon thereafter two ambulance guys helped the man to a folding chair.

  One got him a cup of water. The other one crouched by him.

  Then, as Lizzie was about to turn away, another figure emerged: tall, very slender, with high cheekbones and a lot of dark hair curling over his jacket collar …

  Lizzie swung around reflexively before he could spot her, a lump suddenly in her throat. Dylan.

  She’d known he was in Maine, of course; had not, in fact, been able to stop knowing it for a minute, all the way here. But he was supposed to be in Augusta, not out here in the boondocks.

  Damn … The young uniformed cop approaching her must’ve thought she was trying to avoid him. “Hey,” he called sharply.

  She turned back, still keeping her face in profile. She didn’t want Dylan spotting her, and she hoped he wasn’t coming in her direction.

  Or most of her hoped that. Only that damned little voice in her head kept saying, One more glimpse of him. Just one more …

  Please.

  The young cop confronted her politely. “Excuse me. You have business here?” He indicated the scene of misery behind him with a jerk of his head, meanwhile assessing her.

  From his face she could tell that he was already finding her to be sober, civil, forthright, and at least halfway decently dressed. She saw him place her in the “probably okay” category, and felt the same relief that any other private citizen would.

  Especially since, she suddenly realized, she had an illegal .38 automatic in her bag. Maine required a carry permit, and she didn’t have one.

  But that wasn’t likely to be a problem now; the young cop had begun noticing her on a personal level, his manner suddenly casual as he ducked under the tape to get closer.

  Fail, she thought, because she did have that weapon in her bag, didn’t she? And despite her probably okay appearance, she could be anyone.

  She glanced past the young cop in time to glimpse Dylan Hudson just folding his lanky frame into a car with a Maine state decal on it. The car swung around toward her; she felt a brief flare of panic until the car pulled another fast U-turn and sped off in the other direction.

  She looked back up at the cop’s blandly handsome face: light hair and eyes, blond eyelashes. The smugly confident expression on it told her that girls around here thought he was the cat’s meow.

  “Don’t think I know you,” he said, putting a little twinkle into it. Back in Boston that twinkle would’ve lasted about five seconds before somebody smacked it off him.
But:

  Come on, give him a break. He’s not working in Boston. He’s from here.

  She produced ID though he hadn’t asked for it, careful not to let him see into her bag, then waited while he examined it with feigned seriousness, giving her the girlie treatment.

  “Boston girl, huh?” He gave the ID back. “And your interest here?” Not quite teasing. He had a job to do and he was doing it.

  Sort of. She gave him the spiel: just arrived in town, out for a walk after the long drive, etc. Enough information to satisfy without overexplaining. Then she described the man she’d seen walking ahead of her in the fog minutes earlier.

  His look grew more serious and he wrote that part down, at least. On the lawn the emergency workers were helping the weeping man into the ambulance. By the church steps, the plump uniformed guy shot a look her way, noticed his officer still with her, and appeared to be starting toward them. Then at a shout from inside the massive white structure, he went back in.

  “… some very unpleasant stuff going on in there,” the young cop told her patronizingly, noting her interest. “Now, why would a pretty young lady like you want to worry about …?”

  Her turn to twinkle. She was good at it, too. “C’mere.”

  To his credit, he hesitated. She crooked a finger invitingly at him. “C’mon, I won’t bite.”

  Smiling, she waited until he’d bent down a little, so she could whisper to him. She took care not to touch him.

  “If I were a bad person, you’d be dead now,” she hissed. “And if you ever talk to me like that again, I’ll kick you so hard that you’ll be wearing a truss for the rest of your life, got it?”

  She backed away sharply, feeling sorry for an instant about his shocked face. But only for an instant.

  “Now, you can either take a lesson, or you can go whining to your boss about how the little lady got the jump on you.”

  Then she handed him his duty weapon, an HK USP .45, which she’d slipped from its holster while he was busy having his ear whispered into. “Keep your damn safety strap snapped, too.”

  He grabbed the gun, eyeing her furiously, obviously trying to think of some way to take her into custody without risking the real story getting out. But there were just enough people around and near enough so that someone could have seen the incident.

  And in a town this small, “see” quickly became “tell.” His face crimson, he ducked back under the tape.

  “Make this a short visit,” he advised over his shoulder as he stalked away, his voice harsh with wounded dignity.

  Yeah, or I’ll end up kicking your ass the rest of the way around the block, Lizzie thought at him. But as she watched him go she knew it was her own rear end that really deserved kicking.

  Nice work, she scolded herself as she sidled around to where a lot of gawkers had gathered, some in heavy jackets, others in sleep-wear with fuzzy slippers and layers of sweaters. A bunch of teenaged boys peered wide-eyed from the rear of the crowd, their mouths hanging open in fascination at all the exciting goings-on.

  Good work, Lizzie, way to antagonize the local cops. That’ll get you a lot of help. Idiot.

  Still, the guy had been a creep, trying to lay that load of patronizing crap on her, and anyway she’d never been a fan of the catch-more-flies-with-honey routine.

  Or at least not when a solid shot of vinegar was an option. “What’s going on?” she asked as she approached the onlookers.

  “Dead girl in there,” a man said in a thick Maine accent: they-ah.

  He was in his fifties, wearing a red plaid wool jacket and heavy trousers plus thick-soled work boots. A woman in pink foam rollers frowned disapprovingly at him, as if he’d revealed some family secret.

  He didn’t notice, busy swiping a clear droplet from the end of his nose. “Like a slaughterhouse,” he went on. “ ’Least if what Tiffany Whitmore said is true.”

  He gestured with his swiping finger at a squad car parked at the curb. In the car’s front passenger seat with the door open was a heavyset young woman in a scrub suit, the white turtleneck under the scrub top making her look even bulkier.

  “She was inside,” said the man in the red jacket. “She found the body,” he added.

  No, she didn’t, thought Lizzie. If that were true, the woman wouldn’t be sitting there alone. Every minute that passed risked blurring important memories; besides, you didn’t want the media—or anyone else—getting to even after-the-fact witnesses, giving a defense attorney ways to demolish testimony later.

  Not that there seemed to be any media here, she realized: no reporters’ notebooks were visible, and neither were any cameras. No one was even holding a cell phone up.

  Also, no one was hassling the cops, no catcalls or bottles were being thrown, and since there was no video being shot, no junior comedians were capering and mugging in hopes of ending up on the TV news. Even the EMS techs weren’t keeping an eye on their vehicle’s doors to make sure no one stole reached in and grabbed something from it.

  I guess we really aren’t in Kansas anymore. Fatigue, held off so far by wired nerves and spiked coffee, hit her suddenly between the shoulder blades with an ache like a dull drill boring in. She should go lie down, stare at the motel room ceiling for a few hours.

  And tomorrow, start trying to find Nicki. That was her job here, not—

  “Not going to stick around and tell them how to proceed?” The voice was low, wryly amused. And familiar …

  Unmistakable. She froze, not turning. Barely breathing.

  Dylan. “Not like you. I mean,” the voice went on, “you’re so good at knowing what other people should do.”

  No. I saw him leaving. Don’t let it be …

  Don’t let it be him, she prayed desperately.

  But of course it was.

  5

  “This is Jake Tiptree, how can I help you?”

  Deep in my own thoughts, the next morning I answered the phone the way I used to do back in the city, when the call was almost certainly either business- or neurosurgery-related.

  Or possibly from one of Sam’s drugged-up pals, but that’s another story, too. “Jake,” the voice on the phone said now, “it’s Bob Arnold. Is Wade still there?”

  Not business this time. Not neurosurgery, either. I was in Eastport, Maine, in my big old house on Key Street, and this call was homicide-related.

  “No, Bob, he’s with George over at the Hansens’, trying to help.” With my friend Ellie’s husband, George Valentine, I meant, trying to keep Karen Hansen’s dad, Hank, from putting a gun to his head.

  I personally thought Hank Hansen could have demonstrated his love for his daughter a little better before she died, if he was going to be so histrionic about it afterwards. Everyone in town knew the poor kid got food money by recycling Hank’s beer bottles a six-pack at a time. But now, of course, he was heartbroken.

  “Bob, d’you have any idea yet who might’ve done it?”

  They’d taken Hank to the hospital and sedated him, but he was out again, and from what I’d heard, it was touch-and-go as to whether there might be another violent death soon. It depended, Wade said, on him and George finding all Hank’s weapons; in addition to his other stellar qualities, Hank was the kind of guy who believed the Chinese might invade any day now, and that they would probably come ashore right here in Eastport.

  “No.” Bob’s tone, usually friendly, was curt. “We don’t have a suspect. Listen, Jake,” he went on, “let Wade know I want him to find me just as soon as he gets a chance, all right? I have,” he added resignedly, “no idea where I’ll be.”

  “I’ll tell him. And I expect he’ll find you.” In our town on an island four miles wide by seven miles long, you could usually locate just about anyone without too much trouble.

  “Take care, Bob,” I said, and went back to the kitchen, where Sam and Chip Hahn were at the breakfast table, which Bella was trying to keep supplied with food. But two healthy young men, it turned out, could eat even faster than Bella c
ould cook.

  Or Sam could, anyway. Chip’s roundish, usually amiable face looked pale green, and his toast and eggs were mostly untouched.

  He fiddled with a slice of bacon. “I don’t get it. How did this girl get into the bell tower? Don’t they keep it locked?”

  The question startled me, because it was so close to what I was thinking. “Um, no,” I said, and then went on to explain that security in the tower itself wasn’t what you might call strict.

  “You and Ellie were in there yesterday, weren’t you?” Sam asked. Yet another question that hadn’t been designed to pluck my worry-strings, but did.

  “Yeah,” I said unhappily. “Right up there in the belfry, we were looking for rehab and repair chores that might need doing.”

  The Chamber of Commerce was going to write grant proposals, and if the church wanted in on this there’d need to be a list of specific tasks lined up for funding. And on the simple principle that it was good to do something civic-minded occasionally, Ellie and I had said we’d see if anything obvious like a roof leak or a case of dry rot jumped out at us, just on preliminary inspection.

  But the place had turned out to be in a lot worse repair than we’d thought, so we hadn’t gotten finished. We’d even left our tools and notebooks up there, thinking we’d be back.

  That wasn’t my problem now, though. My problem now was not recalling whether, on our way out, we’d locked the church door. If we hadn’t, I was afraid that was how the murdered girl got in.

  And her murderer, too; outside, the sky spat cold rain. Between vintage tunes like “Purple People Eater” and “Hand Jive,” radio station WQDY advised mariners to stay in port.

  I gathered that the kayak trip was also canceled. “You were out last night, Chip, right?” Sam asked. “Did you see anything?”

  Sam drank down a cup of coffee, got halfway up for another, and was met by Bella, already wielding a fresh pot. Meanwhile I thought Chip’s hand with the bacon slice in it paused on its reluctant way to his mouth.