“They’ve arrested the wrong person, I’m telling you,” insisted Lee.
Barney nodded sympathetically. “I know how you feel, but they’ve got some pretty convincing evidence.”
Lucy leaned closer. “What is this evidence?” she asked.
Barney scratched his chin underneath the fake beard. “Fibers, skin cells, a gum wrapper.”
“A gum wrapper? They’re accusing my husband of murder because of a gum wrapper?” Lee was incredulous.
“Sugarless,” said Barney. “With fingerprints.”
Certain he’d clinched the case against Cummings, he climbed into his cruiser and drove off, leaving Lee and Lucy on the sidewalk.
“Because it’s sugarless gum, it has to be a dentist?” Lee’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
“He did mention fingerprints,” said Lucy.
Lee dismissed that evidence with a wave. “Listen. I know Steve Cummings better than anyone, and I say, sure, he’s a two-timing bastard and a lying, cheating son of a bitch and I wouldn’t trust him with another woman as far as I could throw him, but he’s no murderer!”
CHAPTER TEN
As she started the Subaru, Lucy couldn’t help smiling. This was more like the Lee she knew. Outspoken, outrageous—you had to love her.
Lucy’s next stop was the photo shop, where they promised to develop her film right away. Then she was off to The Pennysaver to write up a story about the Christmas party.
This was going to be a bit sticky—Ted was expecting a happy holiday feature about cute little kiddies receiving gifts from Santa. But that wasn’t what really happened at the party. She didn’t want to embarrass Barney, but she had an obligation to tell the truth.
The jangle of the bell and the sharp scent of hot lead that still lingered years after the linotype machines had been removed always had the same effect on her: It was something akin to the reaction a racehorse has to the sound of the trumpet. She sailed past Phyllis, the receptionist, giving her a wave, and plopped herself down in the chair Ted kept relatively clear for his visitors.
“I think I’ve got something…”
“Santa Claus is a fake?” asked Ted.
“Well, kind of. Something like that might work for a headline,” said Lucy, ignoring his sarcasm. “There were an awful lot of disappointed little kindergarteners at the school this morning. They all got antidrug coloring books instead of the usual gift bonanza. Barney said it was a policy decision by the lieutenant. I think it might be a significant story, considering the town’s drug problem.”
Ted considered her pitch.
“I dunno. Somebody must have donated those coloring books. We don’t want to insult them. After all, Santa Claus did come, and the kids did receive gifts. Some readers might think the kids are just ungrateful.”
“You know that’s not true,” argued Lucy. “Those coloring books are the only gifts some of those kids are going to get this Christmas, and they were expecting real presents, just like in the past.”
“I know.” Ted chewed on a pencil.
“And Barney says all this drug education is a lot of nonsense anyway. He says the town is full of drugs because of the lobster quota.”
Ted pushed his chair away from the antique rolltop desk he had inherited from his grandfather, also a small-town journalist, and laughed.
“Lucy, this is not the Washington Post or the New York Times. We’re a small-town weekly that depends on the local advertisers. It’s bad enough we have a young girl murdered by the local dentist, but now you want me to print that the town is full of drugs, too? Believe me, I hold my breath every time we get a press release from the state police drug task force—and so far, I’ve been lucky. Nobody from Tinker’s Cove has been arrested. And believe me, this is one issue I’m not going to touch until I have to. If a handful of lobstermen are bringing in drugs to pay off their mortgages and keep shoes on their kids’ feet, well, who am I to start pointing fingers? Folks around here have always done what they had to to get by.”
“I get your point,” said Lucy, holding her hands up in surrender. “It’s smiling faces and ho-ho-hos all around.”
At her desk, she flipped through the press releases Phyllis had collected for her, looking for possible future stories. Nothing looked very interesting: the annual holiday bazaar at the Community Church, a Christmas dinner for people who would otherwise be alone sponsored by Alcoholics Anonymous, and a batch of used-clothing and used-book sales. Barney’s sting operation, a community taking care of its children, was beginning to look better all the time. She picked up the phone and dialed the police station, intending to ask Barney for the date and time.
“Lucy?” Barney sounded defensive. “I can’t talk about the Christmas party.”
“I know. Don’t worry. Ted wants a heartwarming holiday story, and that’s what he’s going to get.”
“That’s a relief.” Barney expelled a great sigh—it sounded like a tornado on the telephone.
“This is off the record,” she began, sensing that now that he was no longer worried about looking like the Grinch in the newspaper he might be more talkative than usual. “You know how convinced Lee is that Steve is innocent? She asked me to look into it and…”
“Oh, no.” Barney cut her off. “Don’t do that, Lucy.”
“I wasn’t intending to.” Lucy was quick to tell him, her voice rising in pitch. “But I just wanted to know—for my own peace of mind—are you guys sure you’ve got the right man?”
“‘Fraid so.” Barney lowered his voice. “I tell you, Lucy, morale around here is pretty high. Never been higher. You heard about Horowitz? Congratulatin’ the department? That’s never happened before. And you know why? Because the guys from the fire department, the EMTs would be all over the place before we could secure the scene. Chief Crowley knew it was no good, but he’d just say, ‘What can you do? Ya gotta try to save the victim, even if the victim’s beyond saving.’ But now the lieutenant’s in charge, it’s different. This one was by the book and whaddya know? It worked. We’re not the Keystone Kops anymore.”
Lucy looked up as Phyllis deposited the packet of pictures on her desk.
“I don’t think people thought you were Keystone Kops.”
“Believe me. We took a lot of grief from the state police, even the cops in other towns.”
“I didn’t know that.” Lucy ran her finger under the flap to open the packet. “So, what about the evidence that was so carefully preserved? What was it?”
“Oh, I dunno. Crime-scene experts took care of that. There were fibers, I guess. All that microscopic stuff. And the gum wrapper, o’ course, with Cummings’s fingerprints.”
Lucy pulled out the pictures and saw Steve Cummings’s smiling face looking up at her. She’d forgotten all about taking his picture on Friday. Now, she remembered telling him to think of his girls. The trick had worked; she’d caught him looking particularly attractive.
“What about time?” she asked. “That kind of physical evidence could have been left anytime, and everybody knows he was seeing her.”
“Nah,” protested Barney. “They have ways of dating it. Plus, Cummings doesn’t have an alibi for the time of death on Thursday morning. Shoulda been at his office, but he wasn’t.”
“Oh.” The longer Lucy looked at Steve’s picture, the less she thought he had murdered Tucker.
“That’s how you build a case, you know,” said Barney, sounding rather pompous. “Bit by bit. In the end, it all adds up.”
Lucy suspected he was reciting something he’d heard, perhaps a lecture by the lieutenant on the proper handling of evidence.
“Well, thanks a lot, Barney. I feel better. But it’s still hard to believe Steve Cummings could do something like that.”
“See, that’s where amateurs go wrong,” said Barney. “You think a person’s innocent because you know them, and they’re nice. From what I hear, Ted Bundy is a heck of a nice guy, a real charmer, but he killed a bunch o’ women, didn’t he? Nope, you can�
��t trust people, but you can trust the evidence.”
Lucy chuckled. “Okay. I give up. Now, when is that sting operation?”
“Lemme see.” Lucy could hear rustling paper. “It’s Thursday night. Is that good for you? Seven o’clock.”
“Great.” Thursday night gave her almost an entire week to write the story before the next Wednesday deadline. Plus, it would be a heck of a lot more interesting than that dismal dinner. “See you then.”
She hung up and studied the photo of Steve Cummings. She had taken it under false pretenses and the last thing she wanted was for Ted to run it with the story about Steve’s arrest, so she quickly tore it into small pieces and tossed it into the trash. She turned her attention to the pictures of the children, writing brief captions for the best ones. Then she quickly typed out a few paragraphs about the party, focusing on the children’s songs and the refreshments provided by the mothers. She played Santa’s arrival up big and played down the presents. When Ted read it he was pleased as punch.
“Just one question…” he began, exercising his editorial prerogative, as Lucy answered the ringing phone.
She held up one finger, indicating she would be with him in a minute.
“Pennysaver, this is Lucy.”
“Thank God you’re there!”
“Sue?”
“Can you come over? I’m desperate!”
“Right now?”
“Yes. It’s Will. Another attack. I’ve got to take him to the clinic.”
“Okay. I’m on my way.”
Lucy expected to find the day-care center in chaos when she got there, imagining small figures running around and shrieking at the top of their lungs. All was quiet, however, when she pulled open the door. Connie Fitzpatrick, one of the teachers at Kiddie Kollege, the nursery school that was also housed in the rec building, had settled the children down for their nap.
“Hi, Lucy,” she whispered. “Sue says they rest for at least a half hour, but if they fall asleep they can go ’til one-thirty.”
Lucy nodded and Connie tiptoed out, leaving her in charge. She hung up her coat and checked on the children, who were lying on floor mats. Her buddies Harry and Justin were sound asleep, and Emily seemed ready to drift off. Hillary, Lee’s little girl, was lying on her back, holding up a stuffed toy and whispering to it.
Lucy caught her eye and held her finger to her lips, warning her to be quiet. Hillary rolled over on her tummy, hugging the little bear and sticking her thumb in her mouth.
Continuing her circuit of the room, Lucy felt a bit nonplussed. She had expected to have to cope with a difficult situation but everything was under control. She looked out the window for a few minutes, then went over to Sue’s desk, looking for something to read.
She picked up a magazine and sat down in the rocking chair. But somehow she couldn’t get interested in whether she should “Take the Plunge! Go for the Gold!” and color her hair blond. As for “Paint Your Way Out of the Box!,” well, her house was hardly a surburban box and, while the dining room definitely needed work, she didn’t think she was interested in knocking even more holes in the plaster for an antique look and applying a faux marble finish.
She dropped the magazine in her lap and leaned back, closing her eyes and intending to relax, but it was no good. Her eyes refused to stay shut, and her legs twitched. She needed to move. She got up, stretched, and walked back to the window. She stayed there for a few minutes, doing squats to relieve the tension in her legs. Then she replaced the magazine on Sue’s desk and stood for a moment at Tucker’s.
It was now bare; her parents had taken her things. Lucy pulled out the chair and sat down. With nothing better to do, she opened the shallow center drawer, releasing the bitter smell of unfinished wood. As she expected, the drawer was empty, as were all the others. But when she tried to close the big bottom drawer it wouldn’t go all the way in.
Getting down on her hands and knees, Lucy pulled the drawer out and peered behind it. Something was stuck in the space behind the drawer. She reached in and felt a plastic-covered book of some kind. The missing agenda, she thought, with a rising sense of excitement.
She pulled it out, discovering the bright pink, chunky day planner Sue had described. No wonder they hadn’t been able to find it; as long as it remained upright, there had been enough room for the drawer to close. It was only when it fell on its side that it blocked the drawer.
Lucy set the agenda on the desk and replaced the drawer. Then she sat down once again and held the agenda, smoothing it with the palm of her hand. Should she open it? Some people used agendas like diaries, recording intimate details of their lives. Tucker, Lucy guessed, wasn’t like that. She probably used her agenda as a calendar, so she wouldn’t forget meetings and appointments.
It wouldn’t hurt, thought Lucy, to take a peek. If it seemed personal and private, she could stop. But when she leafed through the lined pages she found only the briefest notations. On the day she died, Lucy discovered, Tucker had been planning to get a haircut at five-thirty.
Curiously, Lucy leafed through the pages preceding her death. They were mostly blank. The cookie exchange was noted, as was an oil-change appointment. And Tucker had planned something for Sunday, but Lucy wasn’t sure what. In her clear, precise block printing she had written three letters: A, M, and C.
What did that mean, wondered Lucy. Was she planning to meet somebody? Somebody with the initials AMC? Who could that be? And when? Tucker had not written down any time, which seemed odd.
Unless, thought Lucy, it was such an important meeting she didn’t have to. Her parents coming, perhaps? Or a serious boyfriend. Those weren’t Steve’s initials, that was for sure.
Not Steve, thought Lucy, struck with a horrible realization. Not Steve’s, Lee’s. Aurelie Mabelline Cummings. Lucy mouthed the words, silently. Then she picked up a pencil and wrote the initials on a scrap of paper: A. M. C.
Lucy’s eyes fell on little Hillary, now sound asleep on her mat. She had the awful feeling she was looking at a motive. Just how far would Lee go to get Hillary and Gloria’s daddy back? Lee had made no bones about the fact that she hated Tucker; could she have killed her?
Seeing Sue’s face in the glass window of the door, Lucy rolled the paper into a ball and tossed it into the wastebasket. Her first impulse was to get rid of the initials; she wasn’t ready to think about this now.
“Hiya,” she whispered. “How’s Will?”
“Better.” Sue sighed and sat down in the rocking chair without taking off her coat. “I’m exhausted.”
“Racing off to the clinic with a sick child will do that to you,” observed Lucy.
“It’s really not fair,” complained Sue. “If his folks weren’t in denial about this whole thing, and if they started treating Will’s asthma, I wouldn’t have to go through this every other day.”
“The doctor will talk to them.”
Sue shrugged. “That’s the problem with the clinic. It’s a different doctor every time.”
Lucy looked at her watch. “I have to go.”
Sue nodded. “Thanks for helping out.”
“No problem. Oh, by the way. I found Tucker’s agenda. It was stuck behind a drawer.”
“Always the detective.” Sue smiled at her.
“I was bored.” Lucy blushed.
“I’ll send it to her folks.”
Lucy nodded, relieved. That took care of that problem. “Thanks,” she said, and hurried out to her car.
Today, she definitely wanted to be home when the kids got home from school. Considering yesterday’s happenings, she didn’t trust Toby and wanted to keep an eye on him. She also knew she had to tell Bill about the marijuana, and figured things would go better if she broached the subject after he’d had his favorite dinner: meat loaf.
She was in plenty of time, as it turned out. The Regulator clock in the kitchen read two o’clock when she got home, giving her at least an hour before the kids would arrive. Plenty of time to fix herself a be
lated lunch. But when she opened a cabinet to get a clean glass, she noticed the light on the answering machine was blinking. She punched the button and listened, while she poured herself a glass of milk.
“Mrs. Stone, this is the Tinker’s Cove High School. Please report to the assistant principal’s office before the end of the day.”
“Toby,” groaned Lucy, replacing the milk container and slamming the refrigerator door shut. She took the glass of milk with her, to drink on the drive. She was pretty sure she would need nourishment to face what was coming.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Calls involving the assistant principal never meant good news. The principal saved all the good news for himself; he issued all the congratulations and honors leaving the assistant principal, Mr. Humphreys, to handle disciplinary matters.
It was ironic, thought Lucy. Toby had always had a blameless disciplinary record. But just as he was applying to colleges and would need faculty recommendations, of course now was the time he chose to get himself into trouble.
What had he done? It hit Lucy like a semi speeding down Red Top Road at ninety miles an hour: He had got caught with pot.
Her stomach twisted itself into a knot, and she regretted the milk she’d gulped while speeding along. A drug offense meant he was in big trouble. She struggled to remember the official school policy, clearly stated and sent home at the beginning of the school year with every student in the Tinker’s Cove High School student handbook. If only she’d read the damn thing.
A detention or suspension wouldn’t be so bad, but she had a horrible feeling that the school also took it upon itself to report drug offenses to the police. That could mean Toby would be charged with a crime. Could they send him to jail? With all those murderers and thieves and rapists. Not in my lifetime, vowed Lucy, determined to defend her child no matter what. Toby may have done something wrong, but he still had rights, and she was going to make sure he exercised them.
Christmas Cookie Murder #6 Page 10