A Star-Spangled Murder

by Valerie Wolzien

  Susan expressed her appreciation and got back in the car. She hoped Karma was running on empty. She had no intention of taking the time to drive slowly just for the sake of a dog’s stomach.

  But either the dog was growing accustomed to the bumpy Maine roads or she was just too tired to make the effort necessary to empty her stomach; the trip was entirely uneventful. And, as no one was home at her last stop, Susan, forgetting her promise to pick up dessert, entered her own driveway just as the sun was beginning to slide behind the pointed white pines in the distance. She had been thinking about Tierney and Theresa and was surprised to see them kneeling together on the lawn beside her house. There was a large pile of lumber and what looked like an old wagon on the ground between them. Susan stopped and got out, with the dog following close behind.

  “Hi!” Kathleen must have been watching out the window, as she appeared almost immediately. She waved Susan over to the house. “Are you hungry?” she called out when they were closer together. “Did you find her? Or anything that might help?”

  “No.” They watched Karma run over to the two girls. “I learned a few things that are interesting, though. I’ll tell you in a bit. What are they doing?”

  “They’re building a float for the parade.”

  “What?”

  “Evidently there’s a Fourth of July parade in town.…”

  “I know. There is every year.”

  “Well, they said that anyone could march and that anyone could make a float and be in the parade. Apparently their older sister suggested that they do this. They’re making some sort of cart that the dog is supposed to be in. I didn’t ask too many questions. I was just happy to see them occupied and busy. You don’t mind that they’re using those old boxes and things that they found in the boathouse, do you?”

  “I guess not. I didn’t even know they were there. Jed always leaves the place immaculate over the winter. After we get the kayaks out in the spring, I try to avoid that place. It’s usually full of spiders.”

  “Want some dinner?” Kathleen asked as Susan paused for a moment.

  “I’d love some.” She waved to the girls and accompanied Kathleen inside. “Do they seem at all distressed to you?”

  Kathleen paused on her way to the stove. “I’ve been wondering about that myself. Tierney—that’s the youngest, right? Well, she’s worried about her mother and father, and she does seem to feel a certain amount of chagrin that someone she didn’t like died,” Kathleen explained. “She acts as if she doesn’t know how to act. But Theresa seems almost unnaturally calm. She’s not talking about the murder, and she tries to keep her younger sister from even thinking about it. She kept up a stream of strained conversation throughout dinner. Ever since you left, in fact.”

  “That’s interesting, but it’s not what I meant,” Susan explained, removing a beer from the refrigerator. “I was wondering if they were worried about Titania.”

  “Not at all as far as I can tell.”

  “Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

  “Very. But it also strikes me as positive. They may know something that we don’t—they may know that she’s safe,” Kathleen suggested.

  “I’d sure sleep better if I thought that was true,” Susan said.

  NINE

  Kathleen got out of bed, walked across the room, and peeked into the hall. “What is that damn dog barking at?”

  “I don’t know. She started when I brought her inside, and I can’t get her to stop. And I had to drag her in.” Susan joined her friend in the hallway.

  “Don’t the girls have any idea what she wants?”

  “Look,” Susan suggested, pushing gently on the door of the children’s bedroom.

  Kathleen was amazed. “They’re asleep! I can’t believe it.”

  Susan pulled the door closed. “It’s been a big day for them both. And they’re young.” She yawned. “I, on the other hand, am not going to get to sleep tonight unless that miserable animal shuts up.” She glared at the dog, who was trying to merge with the windowsill and yapping loudly. “You don’t think she’s sick, do you?”

  “You think it’s pain?”

  “I have no idea what it is. I don’t know anything about dogs!”

  “When was the last time you took her out?”

  “She came in less than an hour ago.”

  “Did she visit a tree or anything before she came in?”

  “How should I know?” Susan asked indignantly.

  “You’re going to have to pay some attention to these things if you’re going to take care of dogs.”

  “I’m taking care of a dog. One dog. Once. And that’s all!”

  “Still …”

  “Okay. I’ll take her outside. She can do what she has to do. And the way things are going,” Susan added, putting the rope around the dog’s neck, “I’ll probably step in whatever she does first thing tomorrow morning!”

  “I’m going to go back to bed,” Kathleen said, too tired to be amused.

  “Enjoy. Come on, dog.” Susan pulled the animal after her down the steps to the first floor. “You know, if you have to go out, you might act a little more enthusiastic about it. This isn’t my idea of fun. I’d rather be asleep in bed.”

  Karma yanked on her leash, and Susan followed the dog through the hallway, out the front door, across the porch by the large pile of flotsam and jetsam that evidently was to become the Taylors’ parade float, and down to the lawn. There Karma began to wander anxiously, nose to the ground. Susan trotted behind, not really distressed at being outside on such a beautiful evening. Stars flooded the sky, and the moon was so bright that it was possible to walk around without fear of colliding with anything.

  “Nice night. Right, Karma?” Now that they were outside, the barking had stopped. Susan took a deep breath of the sweet night air, scented with wildflowers and sea spray, and was happy to follow Karma across the lawn and down to the water.

  The light from the moon flickered on the cove, making waves of small ripples on the tide, causing impossible images in the water. Just for a moment, Susan imagined that she had seen an Indian in a canoe skim across the water. No, an Eskimo … someone in a kayak cutting straight through the water on an imaginary line leading out of the cove and into Penobscot Bay. But dogs don’t have imaginations—or do they? Karma barked twice and flung herself into the freezing water. Susan dropped the lead before she fell in. It was time, she decided, to go for her first kayak ride of the year. Leaving the dog to paddle around in the shallows, Susan ran across the lawn to the boathouse.

  There was a light switch right inside the door, and Susan flicked it on as she entered the long, narrow building. By family tradition, the kayak on the rack closest to the door was her sixteen-foot Orion. Giving more than a little thought to her forty-three-year-old back, she lifted it down and carried it out to the lawn, returning to the building for her paddle, life vest, and spray skirt. She slipped the vest on, zipping it over her nightgown, and tucking the paddle and the elastic skirt into the boat, she lugged it down to the water.

  To get launched, she was going to get wet. Icy water filled her slippers and froze her feet, but she plunged in, tightly holding on to the boat. Bracing the paddle behind her, she struggled to get into the kayak’s cockpit without flipping. After a few precarious seconds, she was in. Unfortunately, she had forgotten to don the spray skirt first. Well, she wasn’t going to be out that long; she’d be careful and keep her paddle low to prevent water from sliding down the long wooden blade and into the kayak with her. She scrunched up the spray skirt and tucked it down between her wet legs.

  Pushing gently against the shore, Susan headed her boat out into the water with a few sweep strokes to point her in the right direction. The other kayaker had disappeared. Karma was out of sight. Susan was having a wonderful time.

  Susan always thought of porpoises when she was kayaking, slipping through the water quietly, efficiently, quickly; she loved the sport. She had never been out after dark before,
and she immediately appreciated the height of the tide. The moonlight was beautiful, but it was difficult to distinguish between small waves and large rocks. Luckily, she was familiar with the few barriers inside the cove, and the water quickly became deep enough to keep her from crashing.

  The last time Susan had seen the other boater, he or she had been heading south, so Susan made a similar decision when she arrived at open water. Staying as close to land as she dared (she didn’t want to risk being capsized by hitting a rock), she paddled through dozens of lobster buoys, peering ahead for a glimpse of the person she was following. She stopped paddling every few minutes, hoping to hear the gentle splash as the other person sped though the water. She couldn’t hear or see anything, however, and she was fast becoming aware of the fact that she had not taken the time to rinse out her vessel before sailing. The winter’s population of bugs was having a field day on her bare legs. The lumps of wet fabric were also uncomfortable, but Susan’s kayak had been designed to turn with a mere shift of her weight, and any unnecessary activity could take her out to sea.

  Just when she thought she could bear it no longer and was going to have to turn back, she heard voices nearby. She pulled her paddle from the water and rested it on the coaming. The drips of water were almost as loud as the voices, and she strained to hear, reminding herself that it was as likely to be a party on land as the person she had followed. In fact, she would have continued on if she hadn’t heard the words “Henshaw” and “bitch” so close together that it was impossible to believe that they hadn’t been used in the same sentence.

  “At least she’s gotten the girls out of our hair. I never felt comfortable with them pulling those stupid pranks. Who knows what they might have overheard while they were sneaking around? One of them was hiding in the linen closet after midnight the other day. Apparently she planned on jumping out and scaring old Humphrey, but she fell asleep.”

  Susan heard a chuckle. “You know,” a voice answered, “sometimes I feel awfully sorry for those kids. They’re too young to be involved in this mess.”

  “Don’t waste your compassion. Those girls would kill us if they knew about this. I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to find out that they killed Humphrey.… Well, someone did. You can’t ignore facts. And they’ve got this warped belief that they could break up a marriage.…”

  Either the woman speaking had lowered her voice or Susan had drifted out of range; she could no longer make out what was being said. She paddled in toward land.

  “You don’t have to worry. We’ll be safe. No one is going to think of looking in the house. It’s too obvious. Believe me, there’s no way we’re going to get caught.”

  “Speaking of that house, we’d better be getting back. You’re supposed to be on a trip to the store, right? There aren’t a lot of all-night groceries in Maine.”

  “No problem. I’ll tell them that I went to the grocery in Blue Hill and took a wrong turn on the drive home. It’s easy to do something like that on these damn country roads.”

  “Maybe.” He sounded doubtful. “Just don’t elaborate. It’s easy to get caught in a lie.”

  “I’m fine. I never get caught.” Susan heard the misplaced pride of a habitual liar in the voice. “What about you? Most people don’t kayak close to midnight, do they?”

  “No problem. I stopped at the lobster pound right after dinner and bought six giants. I’ll give them to my dear wife. She’ll think I was out robbing the traps at the head of the cove. She’ll get a kick out of it, and no one else will notice—or care.”

  “You can pull up heavy traps in a kayak?”

  “Not without tipping over. But she won’t know. She wouldn’t be caught dead in one of these things. She’s more the fifty-foot-sloop type—as long as there’s a full crew aboard to do all the work.”

  “Exactly how long have you two been married?”

  “Nineteen years. Why?”

  “I just wondered how many years it took to build up all this hostility.”

  “It took about nineteen days. No, wait. About nineteen hours. Do you know how my dear wife spent the first morning we were married? She shopped. She had brought five suitcases stuffed full of clothing with us to Hong Kong. The overweight charges almost bankrupted me at the airport. And then she went out to buy things to tuck into the odd empty corner. Things like pearl necklaces and jade bracelets. Not ordinary green jade, mind you. Judy’s taste runs more to the subtle and rare ivory and lavender jade. Took me years to pay off those American Express bills. First-year psychiatrists don’t make much money.”

  “So why didn’t you just get a divorce?”

  “First-year psychiatrists don’t get divorced the day after they get married. It might be construed as a lack of good judgment. I was too young to realize that time erases many mistakes. I don’t know how I would have made it through these last few years if I hadn’t run into you.”

  “What’s that they say? There are no accidents?”

  “So maybe they’re wrong.”

  Susan heard footsteps and had a moment of panic. Paul was apparently returning to the shore, to his kayak.

  Kayaks are meant to travel forward with speed and grace. Turning them around is another matter. Susan struggled to change direction, succeeding only in bumping the shore. She braced her vessel against land and waited for Paul to leave. Happily, he slipped, and his angry splashing and cursing covered up any noises she made.

  Half an hour later she was sliding her craft back into the cove. She was cold, wet, and, she feared, completely covered with bug bites. The mosquitoes had decided to attend her wait by the coastline. Her legs were getting numb, and she was unable to determine what damage had been done to them inside the boat. In a while, she promised herself, she would be back on land, in a warm shower, where she could think over what might be hidden where in the house. She had visions of going through that pile of boxes in the room on the second floor. But what was she looking for? Would she know if she found it?

  The tide was beginning to go out, and she realized that she was going to have to cross the current to return home. Crossing a current is difficult to accomplish without having two points in view to use for spotting. Susan could see the lights left on in her bedroom, but no other landmark was visible. The moon was behind her, and she was wondering how she was going to manage when she heard angry voices. There was no mistaking these two. Ted and Tricia were reliving the conflicts that had destroyed their relationship. Apparently, Susan thought, their marriage had included many arguments: they had become so good at them.

  Accusations of sexual infidelities, financial irresponsibility, incompetent and inadequate parenting, were volleyed through the soft night air. At one point, Susan heard Tricia complaining about her husband’s dedication to his craft, over his insistence that he design their homes. Probably not enough closet space, Susan thought, paddling hard against the current. She didn’t bother to stay quiet. They were making too much noise to notice the rhythmic swoosh, swoosh as she passed below them.

  She might have made it to her house without notice if Karma hadn’t appeared, bounding enthusiastically out of the woods and leaping at her kayak as she touched shore. A mistaken shift of weight can cause a sea kayak to capsize. Eighty pounds of dog works well, too. Within seconds, Susan was underwater, struggling to get out of the cockpit without damaging herself or her boat on the bottom of the cove. The dog didn’t surprise her by not helping. In fact, Karma’s teeth fastened on to her soaking cotton gown as though she had no intention of ever letting go.

  “Can I help?”

  Susan was thrilled to hear Kathleen’s offer. “Yes. Please. Can you get this dog away from me without falling in yourself?”

  “Sure.” Kathleen’s voice was cheerful. “Come get a cookie, Karma.”

  Magic. The dog flew to Kathleen, and Susan was left to struggle to shore and stash her kayak under some nearby trees.

  Susan wasn’t surprised that she had trouble going to sleep that night. There was
a murderer loose, a thirteen-year-old girl was missing, and a damp dog was snoring beside her in the old-fashioned double bed.

  It was a relief how quickly the animal had dropped off to sleep, and Susan wasn’t anxious to awaken her. But she couldn’t rest with so much going around in her head. She reached out from under the toasty wool blanket, still necessary in Maine during the cool summer nights, and turned on the bedside light. The switch seemed to make a loud noise, but Susan was relieved to see that Karma didn’t stir. She picked up the pen and notepad that she always kept nearby, and tried to get organized. The first thing to do was figure out what had to be done in the morning.

  Susan loved making lists. They gave her the illusion of control, organization, and progress. She took her pen and made a strong line down the center of the page. On the right, she would list everything she knew about the murder; on the other side, she would list everything she knew about Titania’s disappearance. Fifteen minutes later, she had dozed off, the still empty sheet in her lap.

  When she woke up, the room was completely dark. After a moment, Susan realized that coastal fog had moved in, eliminating the light from the moon, causing the low wail of an automatic foghorn somewhere at sea to enter her consciousness. Karma rolled over and growled in her sleep.

  Susan got up, slipping on her robe in the dark. The dog could growl all she wanted; Susan wasn’t going to be impressed with the fierceness of a canine who was sleeping through what sounded like a meteorite landing on her porch. Barefoot on the chilly wood floor, she ran out into the hallway and down the stairs, pausing only to grab an iron doorstop on her way outside.

  The doorknob, rusty from years in the sea air, screeched as she turned it, and she lifted the heavy weapon above her head as she flipped the switch that turned on the porch lantern.

  “For God’s sake, don’t kill me! I haven’t done anything!”