Tippy Toe Murder

by Leslie Meier

  “Mostly batteries. Paint. Little stuff.”

  “Explosives?”

  “No,” answered Franny quickly, shocked. “At least I don’t think so. I don’t know for sure. The store stocks dynamite, but it’s rarely called for. I hadn’t checked it lately.”

  “Do you have any idea who was stealing, since it wasn’t you?”

  “No.” Franny was reluctant to tell Horowitz about Ben. Complaining to Lucy was one thing, turning him in to the police was another. Across the room her mother opened her mouth to speak but apparently thought better of it and held her tongue.

  “Did anyone work in the store besides you and Mr. Slack?” persisted Horowitz.

  “Mr. Slack’s grandson, Ben.”

  “He had access to the cash and the merchandise?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wouldn’t it be logical to suspect him? In fact, isn’t that why you borrowed the camera?” “Yes,” agreed Franny, relieved that her suspicions were finally out in the open. She hadn’t volunteered it; Horowitz had dragged it from her.

  “We’ll leave that for now,” said Horowitz, and Franny breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Let’s go back about fifteen years, to the accidental death of your husband, Darryl Morgan. Do you remember that?”

  Franny lowered her head and began nervously smoothing her homemade wraparound skirt over her knees. Her mother pursed her lips and fixed her gaze on Franny.

  “Of course I do,” said Franny, staring hard at the irregular kettle-cloth weave.

  “How long were you married?”

  “Just over a year and a half.”

  “How did he die?”

  “He fell down the cellar stairs and crushed his skull. He’d been drinking.”

  “Did he drink a lot?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Was he abusive?”

  Franny didn’t answer, so Horowitz went on. “Records at the police station show a number of calls to the Morgan residence beginning in September 1976 and continuing through June 1978. The code was forty-one—domestic dispute. Do you recall these disputes?”

  “I never called the police.”

  “The calls were placed by neighbors,” explained Horowitz. “There’s a pattern of increasing frequency, which ended abruptly with Morgan’s death.”

  “I came home and found Darryl at the bottom of the stairs. He was dead.”

  “That’s what you said at the time. The records show that the DA considered charging you with Morgan’s death.”

  “I was never charged.”

  “No,” agreed Horowitz. “But you were suspected.”

  “What does something that happened fifteen years ago have to do with this business here?” demanded Irma, no longer able to sit quietly by as Horowitz built a case against her daughter.

  “It could indicate a pattern,” answered Horowitz patiently. “A pattern of abusive relationships that end in violence.” “Don’t be stupid. Franny had a good marriage. Darryl was a real catch.” Irma had puffed out her chest and looked a bit like a broody hen, all flashing eyes and ruffled feathers.

  “You didn’t keep your husband’s name. Why was that?” asked Horowitz, with his usual persistence.

  “I wanted to forget him. I didn’t even want his name. That’s not a crime.”

  “That’s right,” proclaimed Irma. “You’re barking up the wrong tree. What about them Satanists? Caro Hutton disappears, old Mr. Slack dies. It doesn’t take a genius to see that boy Ben is involved. Him and his Devil-worshiping friends. You should leave Franny alone and arrest them before they take another victim!”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Small. I can’t ignore the evidence.” He paused and turned to Franny. “I’m going to have to take you into custody. The charge is the murder of Morrill Slack.”

  “But what about Ben?” cried Franny.

  “He couldn’t have done it. He has an unbreakable alibi. At the time of Slack’s death, Ben was in the custody of the Gilead police. Operating under the influence.”

  Horowitz nodded at the officer, who immediately slipped a pair of handcuffs around Franny’s wrists and read the Miranda rights to her from a printed card. Franny was led out to one of the cruisers and quickly driven away in a procession complete with flashing lights, but no sirens. Irma Small watched from the window, a vague figure, her image blurred by the aluminum screen.

  15

  No undershirts or underpants to be worn under costume.

  “There’s nothing to do here. I’m bored.”

  Caro Hutton had no experience at parenting, so she took the complaint quite seriously. She looked up from her needlepoint and gazed directly into her young companion’s clear blue eyes. She was glad she had chosen the name Lisa for her; somehow it suited her.

  “There’s no TV. There’s hardly any toys. There’s nobody to play with. I want to go home.”

  “I used to spend summers here when I was a little girl,” said Caro. “I was never bored. I thought I was in heaven.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Let me see if I can remember. It was a very long time ago.” Caro bent her head and took a stitch or two. Children nowadays watched too much television, she believed, and it robbed them of their imagination. When she was a child she had been surrounded by a large extended family, and she’d always had plenty of interesting things to do. When she began performing and teaching, time had always been at a premium. It was only after she retired and began watching television herself that she’d ever experienced the numbing effects of boredom. It was a terrible sensation and she sympathized with the little girl.

  “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, sq
uatting 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.”

  16

  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.