Sentenced to Death

by Lorna Barrett

  And what if Monty Capshaw hadn’t been of sound mind?

  “Who is that woman in the tight black dress? I’d never seen her before last night,” Tricia whispered. “In fact, she had dinner at the Brookview Inn with David Black and Antonio Barbero.”

  Angelica craned her neck, looked the woman up and down, and raised an eyebrow. “Her name’s Michele something. I met her at some cocktail party Bob dragged me to in Nashua. If I’m not mistaken, she owns a gallery in Portsmouth. Didn’t you say David welded god-awful metal sculptures?”

  “Yes. I heard he wanted to quit his regular job and do it for a living.”

  “Ha! Retail is precarious enough. Trying to make a living in the arts is just about impossible.”

  “Which is why he’s still got a day job. Well, two actually.”

  “When does he find time to do sculptures?” Angelica asked.

  Tricia shrugged. “According to Frannie, making his art is his second job.” She thought about it. The Blacks had always been in financial distress. Had David just told Deborah he held a second job while he did his sculptures for the gallery? And if that was true, where had he done the work? Deborah had said he kept none of his welding equipment in their garage. She was afraid he’d set the place on fire. Had he fabricated them at his day job? That didn’t seem likely. Could he have rented a studio somewhere?

  “We ought to go check out David’s work—to see if it was any good,” Angelica suggested.

  “When?”

  “How about tonight? Michele may take time out to go to a funeral, but I’m sure she isn’t going to close the gallery because one of her artists’ wives died. I mean, it’s just not good business.”

  Did Angelica realize how cold she came off at times?

  “Well?” she demanded.

  “I guess,” Tricia said.

  “Ginny’s been moaning for you to give her more responsibility. Let her close Haven’t Got a Clue and we’ll go to the gallery and then have a lovely dinner. I heard about this amazing Italian restaurant I’ve been dying to try.”

  “What about the Cookery?” Tricia asked.

  “I have no problem with Frannie closing for me. And besides, you’ve been awfully depressed about Deborah’s death. It might cheer you up to get out of Stoneham for an evening. I know I could sure use it.”

  It had been two years since Angelica had relocated to New Hampshire, and Tricia still couldn’t get over the fact her sister felt comfortable with Stoneham’s small-town charm. And of late, she’d spent nearly all her off time working on the new cookbook. Too much time. Despite the friction the night before, Tricia had missed their regular gab fests.

  Angelica glanced at her watch. “What’s taking so long? Shouldn’t they have started the service by now?”

  An impassive Mr. Baker still stood on the sidelines. Tricia crossed the room to join him. “Mr. Baker, when is the service supposed to start?”

  Baker frowned and looked uncomfortable. “I’m afraid there is no formal service scheduled. Mr. Black decided against it. He thought a gathering of friends would be adequate.”

  Tricia gaped at the man, whose disapproving gaze seemed to be riveted on David Black and the gallery owner. Tricia shook herself, and managed a shaky “Thank you” before turning to rejoin Angelica. “There’s no service. This is it.”

  “This is what?”

  “A gathering,” Tricia explained.

  “What idiot came up with that bright idea?” Angelica asked.

  “David.”

  Angelica glanced at her watch again. “I need to go.”

  “But I’m not ready.”

  “That’s okay. I’ve got my umbrella. I won’t melt. I’ll call you later about tonight.”

  “But, Ange—”

  There was no stopping Angelica once she’d made up her mind about something. Tricia watched as her sister said good-bye to Elizabeth and then headed toward the exit.

  David had finally extricated himself from the gallery owner and was speaking with Russ Smith, who bore an expression of surprise. No doubt David had just told him there’d be no ceremony.

  Tricia marched across the room to stand before David. He didn’t even acknowledge her. “I’m not paying for anything formal. If you want to run an obituary, that’s up to you,” he told Russ.

  Tricia tapped David’s shoulder. He finally turned. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe how little regard you seem to feel for your poor dead wife. This”—she waved her hand at the room at large—“is not what Deborah would have wanted.”

  “And how would you know?” David challenged. “You were friends with her for what—two years?”

  “Almost three,” Tricia said, bending the truth just a little. It was more like two and a half years.

  “Well, I was married to her for six years—and knew her for two years before that. I think I knew my wife much better than you did.”

  “Not the way she spoke.”

  David’s head snapped up, his eyes blazing. “The subject is closed.” He gestured toward the door. “Now, if you don’t mind.”

  Several other mourners were obviously eavesdropping, but Tricia was so angry that she didn’t care. She leaned closer and kept her voice low. “But I do mind. If I didn’t know better, David, I’d say everything you’ve done for the past few days screams involvement in Deborah’s death.”

  David’s eyes grew even wider. “Get out.”

  Tricia met his gaze. “Gladly.”

  NINE

  From her perch behind the cash desk, Miss Marple glared at the rain that continued to beat against Haven’t Got a Clue’s front display window. “Yow,” she said in what sounded like annoyance.

  Tricia, sitting on a stool below the cat, looked up from the book she’d been trying to read. “You said it,” she agreed. Movement to her right caught her attention. Someone at the door was closing an umbrella. The door opened and a figure stepped inside and pulled off the hood of a yellow slicker. “Feels more like November than August,” Ginny said, and wiped her feet on the bristle welcome mat.

  “Good morning,” Tricia said, grabbed a bookmark, and closed the copy of Ellery Queens’s Double, Double, setting it beside the newspaper she hadn’t yet had time to finish reading. “Although by the looks of the weather, we might not have many customers today.”

  “The perfect time to seek out a nice cozy murder mystery, sit down with a cup of cocoa, and put your feet up. Sounds like heaven.”

  “To me, too.”

  “Speaking of heaven, how did Deborah’s service go? You’re back a lot earlier than I would’ve thought. I was going to try to make it, and then …” She let the sentence hang, and sighed. “I didn’t want it to look like I was too eager to take over her store. You know, gloat over the body and everything.”

  “There was no body,” Tricia said, and picked a gray cat hair from her black sweater. Since the day was so gloomy, she hadn’t bothered to change out of her mourning attire. “There was no service. What is it with this town that people keep deciding there’s no need for the rituals surrounding death?” she asked. “First Jim Roth, now Deborah.”

  “What?” Ginny asked, aghast, and struggled out of the sleeves of her still-dripping slicker.

  Tricia crossed her arms. “David Black decided not to hold a ceremony. He thought a gathering would be enough. The cheapskate isn’t even going to spring for a paid death notice in the Stoneham Weekly News. And worse—worst of all—he showed up to the funeral home with another woman in tow.”

  Ginny’s mouth dropped. “A date? You’re kidding!”

  “No, I’m not. She was older than him, too. Angelica says she owns an art gallery in Portsmouth.”

  “Angelica certainly gets around,” Ginny said, and headed toward the back of the store to hang up her jacket.

  Tricia shrugged off the comment and then let out an exasperated breath. “What do you know about David Black’s sculptures?” she called.

  Ginny returned to the front of the store. S
he tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her left ear. “I saw some of them on display last month on the Milford oval. It was some kind of local starving artists’ display. Antonio wanted to see if he could find some local paintings to decorate the Brookview Inn.”

  “I heard David’s sculptures are rusty and ugly.”

  Ginny crossed her arms, rubbing them for warmth. “Rusty and rustic. I guess it’s an acquired taste.”

  “Did he sell much?”

  “I have no idea. We came late to the sale. In fact, most of the artists were already packing up. Antonio got a couple of paintings for a reduced price simply because the artists didn’t want to drag them home.”

  “Shrewd businessman,” Tricia said flatly.

  Ginny nodded at the newspaper on the cash desk. “Did you read the article about the pilot who crashed the plane?”

  Tricia looked up sharply. “No.” Ginny made a dive for the paper, but Tricia beat her to it. “Where is it?”

  “Inside the front section.”

  Tricia thumbed through the paper until she found an article at the bottom of page four. She scanned it, but it really didn’t say anything she didn’t already know—except for Monty Capshaw’s address. She pursed her lips, thinking …

  Ginny struck a pose, plastering her splayed fingers to her forehead, threw her head back, and squinted at the ceiling. “I predict you’re going on a very short journey. To Milford. To Olive Road. Where you will visit Elaine Capshaw and talk about the death of her husband and your dear friend Deborah.”

  Tricia leveled an icy stare at Ginny. “That’s not funny, Ginny.”

  Ginny laughed. “You may call me Madam Zola.”

  Tricia carefully refolded the newspaper. “As it happens, I have a lunch date. Would you mind watching the store?”

  “Not at all,” Ginny said.

  “Not only that,” Tricia said, “but Angelica and I have an appointment later this afternoon. Do you think you could close for me?”

  Ginny’s eyes widened. “I’d be very happy to do so. I just need—”

  Tricia turned for the cash desk, opened the register, and took out a key on an Edgar Allan Poe keychain. She was glad Stoneham Hardware opened early. She’d had the key made on her way back from the funeral home. “I should have given this to you ages ago.”

  Ginny sobered and grasped the key, holding it tight in her palm. “I’ll have to give it back to you in just a couple of weeks.”

  “If you’re good, I’ll let you keep the keychain,” Tricia said.

  Ginny laughed. “I’ll treasure it always. You’d better get going. You don’t want to keep Mrs. Capshaw waiting.”

  “I told you, I have a lunch date.”

  “At ten o’clock in the morning?”

  “Did I say lunch? I meant brunch.”

  “Sure,” Ginny said, drawing the word out for at least ten seconds.

  Head held high, Tricia collected her still-damp raincoat and umbrella from the back of the store. “I’ll see you in an hour or so.”

  Ginny, who had taken her station behind the cash desk called out, “Bring me back a burger and fries, will you?”

  Tricia stood before the front door that needed painting on 87 Olive Road, unsure of what she might say should anyone actually answer. The small Cape Cod home had seen happier days. An aura of neglect seemed to permeate the place.

  Plucking up her courage, Tricia transferred her umbrella to her left hand and pressed the plastic doorbell with her right. From somewhere inside came the muffled sound of barking. After thirty seconds with nothing happening, she tried again. And waited. The barking continued.

  Tricia glanced in the driveway. A green Honda was parked there. Perhaps Mrs. Capshaw had been bothered by the press and had simply given up answering her door.

  Just as Tricia was about to walk away, the door jerked open. A tired looking woman in her late fifties stood before her, struggling to hold on to a small, wiggling white dog. Her red-brown hair looked straggly, with a white stripe down the middle where she hadn’t colored it in months.

  “Mrs. Capshaw?” Tricia asked.

  “I have nothing to say to the press,” the woman said, and began to shut the door, but Tricia jammed her purse between the door and the casing. The little dog growled.

  Tricia stepped back but held her purse in place. “Please, I’m not a reporter, and I witnessed the crash.”

  Mrs. Capshaw opened the door just enough to show her face. “What do you want?” she asked suspiciously.

  “To talk to you about what happened.”

  “My husband crashed his plane. He’s dead. There’s nothing more to talk about.”

  She went to shut the door again, and Tricia blurted, “My best friend was killed.”

  Mrs. Capshaw’s lower lip trembled, and her eyes filled with tears. She opened the door, stepped back, put the dog down, and ushered Tricia inside. “Come on in. Watch out for Sarge. He’s small, but he bites.”

  The small fluffy dog sniffed Tricia’s ankles but didn’t seem about to attack, and Tricia gingerly followed the dog’s mistress into the living room.

  “Sorry about the mess,” Mrs. Capshaw apologized. “Since Thursday, I haven’t felt much like cleaning.”

  As she said, newspapers, with pictures of the crashed plane prominently displayed, lay across the coffee table in disarray, accompanied by dirty coffee mugs and several plates littered with crumbs. Mrs. Capshaw gestured for Tricia to take an empty seat, while she picked up and folded a colorful granny square afghan and tossed it onto the far side of the couch before taking a seat. She picked up a remote and muted the old black-and-white movie showing on her no-longer-new television. Sarge sat on his haunches between the two women, looking as fierce as a dog his size could manage.

  “What do you want me to say—that I’m sorry your friend died? Well, I’m sorry my husband died. I’m not sure I have enough pity for anyone else. I’m pretty much wallowing in it.”

  “I understand completely.” Tricia sighed. “How … how could this have happened? How could your husband’s plane have run out of gas?”

  “Monty might have lost track of time. Maybe his credit card had been refused, but he thought he would squeeze a few more minutes in the air with what he had in the tank. He could have just forgotten to fill the tank—he’d been forgetting a lot of things lately.” She shrugged and shook her head, leaning farther back into the worn leather couch.

  “What kind of things?” Tricia asked, trying not to sound too pushy.

  Mrs. Capshaw sighed once again. “He’d go to the store and forget why he went. Stupid things like that. It was a side effect from his meds.”

  Tricia’s eyes widened. “Meds?”

  Mrs. Capshaw nodded. “Monty hadn’t been well. Sometimes I wondered if he should even be flying, but he said the doctor hadn’t told him to stop, and he figured if he could still make money at it …”

  Did Mrs. Capshaw really believe that? Something in her voice seemed to belie that.

  “How ill was your husband?”

  “Cancer,” she admitted. “But he’s been in remission for a while now. What we originally thought was a death sentence has turned out to be more of a chronic disease.” She seemed to realize she’d spoken in the present tense and looked away. “We always thought the cancer would kill him, not flying. He really was a damned good pilot.”

  Tricia leaned forward, causing a wary Sarge to stand his ground, but at least he didn’t growl. It was then she noticed several envelopes on the coffee table. The return address was New Hampshire Mutual. Was Mrs. Capshaw checking up on her husband’s insurance policy? There was no tactful way to ask. Instead, she said, “Tell me about your husband.”

  Mrs. Capshaw sighed, her expression growing wistful. “He was a devil back when we were dating. He took me flying on our first date, complete with barrel rolls.” She stifled a laugh. “I threw up. That certainly made am impression on him. But he asked me out again the very next night, and this time we stayed fir
mly on the ground.”

  Tricia smiled. “Go on,” she urged.

  “He’d make me so angry I’d threaten to break up with him—and then he’d do something silly and sentimental and I’d fall for him all over again.”

  “How long did you date?”

  Mrs. Capshaw managed a weak smile. “Two months. We were married for thirty-eight years. In all that time, we never spent a night apart. Until now.”

  Never?

  “He was the sweetest man who ever lived. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.” She sighed, and her face went lax.

  Tricia studied the woman’s face. For a couple so devoted, she didn’t seem as bereft as one might have expected after suffering such a devastating loss. Or was it the fact that the cancer had shadowed their lives for so long—like a noose loosely wrapped around Capshaw’s neck—that when the end came his wife was grateful for the extra years they’d managed to eek out—and to be rid of the stress of waiting for the end?

  Mrs. Capshaw sighed again. “You seem awfully understanding for a woman whose friend was killed in this accident. I’ve received a couple of nasty calls, threatening you might say, from people professing to be friends of Deborah Black.”

  “I can’t imagine any one of her friends being so … so …” Words failed her. The idea of someone like Nikki, Frannie, or Julia doing something so callous or disrespectful was unthinkable. “Male or female?”

  “It was a woman.”

  “Have you told the police?”

  She nodded. “The calls were made from a pay phone.”

  Not many—if any—of those left in Stoneham. Tricia would have to keep an eye out for one. “I’m so sorry.”

  “To tell you the truth, I only let you in here so I could listen to your voice. But I’m sure it wasn’t you.”

  Thank goodness for small favors.

  “But you could be in danger.”

  Mrs. Capshaw managed a weak smile, cocking her head to gaze at her dog. “I have Sarge to protect me.”

  Tricia eyed the compact dog, still staring intently at her.

  “Don’t you have any family you can rely on?”

  Mrs. Capshaw shook her head. “We never had children. Monty had a couple of nieces and nephews, but I was never close to them. Or, I should say, they never wanted to be close to me. We’d get Christmas cards from that side of the family, but didn’t have much other contact.”