Dead Drift: three small town murder mysteries (Frank Bennett Adirondack Mountain Mystery Series Book 4)

by S. W. Hubbard

  “Right towards the end of the Korean War,” Frank said. “Now, look for Theresa Steuben’s baptismal record.”

  “She was baptized in May of 1953. But she was born in early February.”

  “Less than nine months from the wedding.” Frank moved the beam of his flashlight back to the marriage certificate file. “Hey, does that certificate say who the witnesses were?”

  “Yes.” Bob rechecked the file. “Witnesses: Ardyth Sampson and George Munger.”

  Bob tugged at his clerical collar, leaving a distinct black fingerprint on the pristine white. “Is it really necessary to confront Ardyth with this, Frank? She must have been trying to spare her friend more heartache by taking the picture out of the locket before anyone recognized that Connie had saved a memento of her youthful indiscretion.”

  “She didn’t have to sneak in and steal it to do that,” Frank said. “She could have come directly to me and I would’ve given it to her, no questions asked, no reporting to Doris or Earl. Ardyth knows me well enough to be sure of that. No, there’s something more going on here.”

  Bob closed the file drawers and sneezed. “You’re too suspicious, Frank. The poor woman took the photo out and put the locket back because she must have realized you’d suspect Doris and Earl. Where’s the harm?”

  “I told you before, Bob – I don’t give a damn about that necklace. But I do care who put Roy Corvin into a coma that he may never come out of. And that broken locket has got something to do with it.”

  Despite serving Frank tea and gingersnaps in her parlor, Ardyth Munger sat looking at her guest is if she fully expected he would knock her around to get her to talk.

  Frank clasped his mug and leaned forward. Ardyth shrank into the chintz. “Ardyth, I’m not mad at you for taking the locket and destroying the picture. But I think there’s something you’re not telling me. Something to do with Roy’s shooting.”

  “Don’t be silly. The locket has nothing to do with that.”

  Frank reached for another cookie. This might take a while. “Okay, start at the beginning and tell me how you realized the locket was Connie’s.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t make the connection to the dress when I opened the locket.” She waved at her living room wall where Connie and Deke’s wedding pictures still hung. “These have been here so long, I guess I don’t see them anymore. If only I had….”

  Ardyth twisted a loose thread on her sleeve. “Anyway, last week after Roy was shot, I drove up to the hospital. I made Connie come with me to the coffee shop for a snack. To distract her from her troubles, I told her about finding the locket. Well, I thought the poor woman was having a stroke! When she finally got hold of herself, she told me some things I never knew.

  “You see, Connie and Deke got engaged before Deke shipped out to Korea,” Ardyth continued. "She was only seventeen – a beautiful girl, full of fun. A group of us used to go up to this dance hall in Plattsburgh, near the Air Force base. Connie couldn’t stand to sit home, so she’d come along and dance with the airmen. That’s where she met the other fellow.”

  Ardyth brushed some cookie crumbs into her napkin. “She and Deke got married when he came home on leave – a small wedding.” She looked up. “Connie loved Deke, Frank, she did. I don’t think she even knew she was, was--”

  “Already pregnant with the other guy’s baby.”

  Ardyth choked on her tea but kept talking. “So Theresa was born a little premature and Deke came home and everything was fine. Then Nancy and Karen came along. And people always commented how different Theresa was from the other girls. Slender and dark and quick as a whippet. And wild. She always had a bunch of boyfriends, and she fought with Deke about them nonstop. Connie thought she’d settle down when she married Roy’s father and had the baby, but Theresa wasn’t made for small-town life. When her husband was killed, she left Roy with her parents and she never came back.”

  “And Connie kept the locket all those years?” Frank asked.

  “Yes, it was all she had of Theresa’s father. She thought if she ever found Teresa again, she might tell her the truth. You know, to explain why she was so different from her sisters, and why she never really got along with Deke.”

  “But then Connie lost it.”

  Ardyth examined her African violets. “Yes, Connie didn’t like to say, but I suspect Roy must have found it and took it to sell for drug money. He stole other things from them, you know.”

  “Uh-huh. So how did it wind up in the park?”

  “I’m sure you’re aware that people congregate there for illegal purposes,” Ardyth said. “I found all sorts of terrible things on park cleanup day last year.”

  “Over behind the restrooms, not out in the open on the playground,” Frank said.

  Ardyth sat up straight with her hands folded tightly in her lap. “He’s a drug addict, Frank. Who can predict what he’s likely to do?”

  Call Frank looked her in the eye. “Why was the clasp broken?”

  “What?”

  Frank pulled the locket out of his pocket. “See here? The loop that the hook fits into is completely ripped open. You know how I think that happened?”

  Ardyth twisted her hands, her lips pressed shut.

  “I think this locket was snatched off the neck of the woman wearing it. And Connie certainly never wore it anymore, did she?”

  Ardyth flinched, as if he really had hit her. Frank pressed on.

  “Roy took the locket, but he didn’t steal it from his grandmother. He got into an argument in the park, an argument with his mother. He pulled this locket off Theresa’s neck.”

  Ardyth’s ramrod posture dissolved. “Out of the blue, Theresa contacted Connie last year. She was in AA and trying to make amends with people she’d hurt. Connie told her the truth about her father and sent her the locket, hoping it would help Theresa’s recovery. But then Theresa wanted to come home and tell Deke and Roy the whole story. By that time, Roy was in the rehab place and Deke was footing the bill. Connie told her to wait – she was afraid of Deke’s reaction, and she didn’t want to jeopardize Roy’s recovery. So Connie and Theresa argued again.”

  Frank rose and looked down at Ardyth. “When you told Connie about finding the locket, she realized it could only mean one thing. Theresa was back.”

  Ardyth stood and banged the cups and plates onto a tray. “Connie’s had a hard life, Frank. If it turns out Theresa hurt Roy –” She pulled the mug from Frank’s hand. “How much more suffering can a woman take? I had to help my friend. I would do it again.”

  "I can't believe this town." Frank plopped their donuts on his desk and poured two cups of Doris’s sludge. “The temperature in the store dropped about twenty degrees when I walked in.”

  “Guess they all heard you arrested Theresa Corvin,” Earl said, examining his choice of sweets.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t oblige them by collaring some anonymous drug addict for shooting Roy. I must’ve missed the line in my contract that said, ‘Only go after New York City scumbags passing through the Adirondacks on their way to Montreal.’”

  "Everyone was hoping for a happy ending now that Roy’s off the ventilator and out of ICU," Earl said. "It’s hard to believe he was shot by his own mother.”

  “She’s a volatile alcoholic. He’s an angry drug addict. There’s a gun in the mix. I’d say it was a toss-up who would be the victim and who the perp.” Frank dunked his cruller in his coffee. “She might have gotten away with it if she hadn’t used Mrs. Nuegeberger’s cell phone a second time. That made it easy to track her down in Syracuse.”

  “Couldn’t resist calling the hospital to check on Roy. Ironic that Theresa would be tripped up by motherly love.”

  Frank crumpled the donut bag. “Honestly, I think she wanted to get caught. The cops who brought her in said she started confessing before they even had her in the patrol car.” He believed that, so why didn’t he feel the usual satisfaction in solving a difficult case?

  “Maybe it’s a
ll for the best,” Earl said. “Maybe the whole family can make a clean start now that the truth is out. Keeping secrets wears you down.”

  Frank tipped the dregs of his coffee into the terminally ill philodendron on the windowsill. “Earl, there’s something I have to tell you.”

  “You wanted the jelly, not the cruller. Sorry.”

  “No, about the locket. I discovered it was missing right after Ardyth took it.” Frank tossed the words out like he was bailing water from a boat. “I didn’t say anything to you. Or Doris. When it reappeared in the drawer, minus the photo, I realized –”

  Their eyes met.

  “Oh.” Earl walked over to the window.

  The coffee pot sputtered. The fluorescent light hummed.

  “I guess there are cases where the evidence is hard to accept,” Earl said. “Because even people you know really well can surprise you.”

  Frank turned to face him. “I’m sorry.”

  Earl looked at him for a long moment. “Like I said, people can surprise you.”

  

  Coyote Justice

  Marge Malone had her regulars well trained.

  Locals were welcome to hang out in her diner--eating pie, drinking coffee, spreading gossip—but only during off-peak hours. Unfortunately, Saturday of Presidents Day weekend in the Adirondacks was on-peak from 6 AM to closing. Police Chief Frank Bennett had been crazy busy all day: two fender-benders, one spin-out, and a coatless, car-unloading couple locked out of the house they’d rented for the weekend. Now there was a lull in which he might soothe his growling stomach, but the diner was packed. He considered retreating when he heard a familiar laugh. The sound, bells descending a scale, inspired a wave of heat within him that had nothing to do with being overdressed in the steamy interior of the crowded restaurant.

  He spotted Penny Stevenson dispensing paperback novels and jokes to a table of four seniors. The old folks gazed up at her as if Audrey Hepburn had been reincarnated before them.

  As he hesitated in the doorway, more tourists pressed in behind him, forcing him directly into Penny’s path.

  She saw him, and a big smile crinkled her eyes and dimpled her cheeks. But she smiled like that for everyone, didn’t she?

  “How are the crowds at the library?” Frank asked.

  “This is not a reading weekend. I’m thinking of closing early. I promised Edwin and Lucy I’d come over to the Inn and help them out.”

  “Not in the kitchen?” Penny freely admitted she was a lousy cook.

  “Don’t worry. Edwin won’t let me come into actual contact with food. I’ll just clear plates and load the dishwashers.” She signaled to a mom and two kids across the room that she had something for them, then ducked her head to dig for it in her purse. “After we get everyone fed, we’re going to hang out and have a few beers.” Penny stopped rummaging and looked Frank straight in the eye. “You should join us.”

  A prickle of pleasure coursed through him but he quickly squelched it. Frank reminded himself, as he always did when he felt his heart quickening in her presence, that when he had been Penny’s age—thirty-three—she had been a sixth grader selling Thin Mints to finance her trip to camp.

  Penny prodded his arm. “C’mon Frank—say yes. You’ll be ready for a beer by eleven.”

  “Unfortunately, eleven is right when my business is picking up.”

  Penny made a face. Was she really disappointed?

  “Well, you have to eat, and you’ll never get dinner from Marge. Come to the Inn and eat in the kitchen. I’ll mess up the presentation on one of Edwin’s plates and save it for you.” Penny winked at him.

  Before he could think of a reply, she had one toddler in her arms and another dragging her away by the leg. A cross-country skier slipped past him and nabbed the last seat at the counter.

  Frank left hungry.

  The town secretary’s piercing voice stopped him at the door to his office. “Frank, there’s a problem with those girls who run the organic farm—they hear music out in the woods,” Doris said. “And some skier is stuck at Whiteface. Says, do we know where his wife is?”

  Whiteface was in Wilmington, ten miles away. “Why’s he calling us?”

  “He claims he has a house here in Trout Run. Michael Moran. Never heard of him.”

  And if Doris hadn’t heard of a person, he didn’t exist.

  “Give that call to Earl. And what do you mean, music in the woods?”

  Doris made crazy circles at her temple. As far as she was concerned, organic farming put you in the same lunatic fringe as Scientologists and the Illuminati.

  Handling both calls in the small office, Frank felt like he had earphones connected to two iPods playing a different tune in each ear. In his left ear one of the farmers—was it Jade or Anna, the loopy one or the sensible one?—was nattering about music, “It’s probably nothing and I hate to bother you because I know you’re busy, but it is strange…..”

  And in his right ear he could hear Earl’s side of a conversation with the other caller. “No, there haven’t been any serious accidents today, just a fender-bender in the Trail’s End parking lot….No, not an SUV, two sedans…no, no ambulance calls either…”

  “…We keep hearing music when we go outside to tend to the chickens.”

  “Loud music, like from a party?” Frank asked.

  “No, not party music. And not that loud either…”

  So why were they complaining?

  “You’re stuck at Whiteface because your wife never picked you up? Uh, no sir, there aren’t any taxis up here in Trout Run and Wilmington…”

  “It’s that old song Frank Sinatra used to sing. ‘New York, New York’ but without the words, just the dum-dum. da-da-da-da. Over and over again…”

  “and you called her and she doesn’t answer?” Earl said. “We can check your house. Where do you live?”

  “…and we only hear it, when the wind is blowing, and then it stops, and then it starts again. So we’re worried that maybe…”

  “High Ridge Road, up at the crest?” Earl verified. “That big green house? Yeah, I know it. Vacation home, right?”

  “I’d go out and check myself, but we’re making kohlrabi fritters and we have to keep an eye on them,” Jade said.

  Frank shouted across the office. “Earl, does he live next door to Jade and Anna’s farm?”

  “Yeah—how did you know?”

  “Ask him what his wife’s cellphone ringtone is.”

  “Huh?”

  “Ask.”

  “He says, ‘New York, New York’.”

  The little farmhouse clung to the rising slope of the ridge with a limited view of the valley. The two small fields in which the women grew vegetables in the short Adirondack summers occupied the flat land in front of the house. Behind the house were the chicken coop and a small barn for the goats. The woods began to the east of the outbuildings and continued behind the other houses on the higher part of the ridge. Frank parked the police department jeep at the end of the cleared drive and strapped on his snowshoes. Marching toward the woods he heard nothing but the rustling bows of the hemlocks and the soft murmuring clucks of the hens. The snow, which had been falling steadily since noon, had slowed to a few lazy flakes. In the distance, he heard the echo of a gunshot—someone hunting small game at dusk. Then through the cold, darkening air came the faint strains, “Dum, Dum, da-da-da-da, Dum-dum, da-da-da-da.”

  Around him, the snow-draped pines and birches stood impassive as Marines at attention. At intervals, the trees sported bright orange signs Posted Private Property No Hunting” Frank forged a path through them, following the elusive strains of the music. He’d left Earl with two orders: tell Moran to keep calling his wife’s cellphone, and contact the Department of Environmental Conservation. Even if Frank found the cell phone, they might need the DEC dogs to find Renee Moran. Because surely the woman and her phone were no longer together.

  The music stopped, but Frank trudged on, not sure if he was getting
closer to the lost woman or not. He saw no tracks in the snow, but if she had started out early in the day, her tracks might be filled. “Renee!” he shouted. “Renee, can you hear me?” Suddenly in the black and white landscape Frank’s sweeping flashlight picked up a new color. Had he imagined the flash of blue? He ventured farther between the trees, acutely aware that he wasn’t really dressed for deep snow bushwhacking.

  He flashed his light into the trees. Two eyes glowed back at him. But they were not human. He pushed on as the fox scampered away.

  A branch bowed with snow dumped its cold load on the back of Frank’s neck. As he jerked in surprise, his flashlight illuminated the tip of a bright blue snowshoe binding.

  The woman lay on her side with her arms flung outward, her feet pointed in two directions. A blanket of soft snow covered her.

  Frank ran forward, then stopped. She hadn’t taken a bad fall.

  Carefully, he brushed the snow off her back. Between the shoulders of her sleek white jacket was a perfect black hole. Between her breasts, a crater.

  Renee Moran’s heart wept into the snow.

  It would take half an hour for the state police to arrive to secure the scene. In his time alone with the body Frank tried not to think about the woman’s family waiting at the ski slopes, but his imagination got the better of him. They’d probably started out impatient, then irritated, then worried, now panicked. He couldn’t help remembering the afternoon his own wife had been felled by an aneurism, how annoyed he’d been when the furnace repairman had called him at work to say Estelle was not answering the door. How certain he’d been that his day-dreaming wife had forgotten the appointment. How wrong.

  When the EMTs arrived, Frank gladly left them to their work and took the shortest route out of the woods. He found himself in Vonn and Barb McGrath’s back yard. Barb must’ve been watching from her window because she rushed out onto her deck, waving to him in the twilight. “What’s going on, Frank? I called the farm and the girls said someone was lost in the woods. Is it a child?”