Dead of Summer

by Sherry Knowlton

  “Jack said that he would brief me on the specifics of board membership, but we never got a chance to talk.”

  “Even if we track him down, don’t expect too much information. Jack doesn’t often deal with the details. Usually, Ralph Price takes care of all that for him, but Ralph had major surgery and will be gone for most of the summer.”

  When they found the conservatory empty, Quinn steered Alexa through the darkened room toward the french doors. “Maybe he’s outside with a cigar. If not, you can at least get a glimpse of the grounds. Gardening keeps some of the foster kids quite busy.”

  Twilight bathed the landscape in a lavender haze. It took a moment for Alexa to perceive that all the large trees scattered across the huge expanse of lawn had been clipped into large, animal-shaped topiaries. She recognized a bear, a giraffe, and an elephant but couldn’t identify several of the other manicured figures perched on the distant knoll. As the light darkened to purple, a breeze whipped down the slope and the huge animals seemed to prance across the lawn. Alexa shivered at the creepy image.

  Alexa turned to Quinn. “No one seems to be out here.” But she hadn’t really expected to find Jack in his oversized back yard.

  “Well, finding Jack was a long shot. He often disappears after these events. But I’d be happy to brief you on board duties. How about dinner on Friday?”

  “A business dinner?”

  Quinn took a step closer to Alexa and lifted her chin. Gazing into her eyes, his voice dropped to an intimate whisper. “I’m a big proponent of combining business and pleasure. I’d like to get to know you better, Alexa. Just you and me, without the madding crowd.”

  Without hesitation, Alexa accepted. “Friday’s fine for me.” She flashed a mischievous smile. “Maybe we can start with the business part, then consider the pleasure. Right now, though, I need to get home”

  She liked this guy’s style. Sophisticated. Gorgeous. And, completely without effort, he throws an offhand Thomas Hardy allusion into a dinner invitation. Who could refuse? For an instant, Tyrell Jenkins came into her mind. Another gorgeous guy she’d just met. But Tyrell had an in-your-face aggressiveness that turned her off. Quinn’s style reminded her of Cary Grant in one of those old movies: a little too sophisticated but charming nonetheless.

  As they passed the entrance to the dining room, Alexa noticed a group of teens clearing the long table like a swarm of blue bees. A few guests remained in the foyer, engaged in deep discussion. Alexa approached Vivienne Nash, who was standing alone by the wall.

  “Thank you for a lovely evening, Mrs. Nash. Could you pass my appreciation on to your husband as well?”

  “Of course. I hope we’ll see you here again soon.”

  Vivienne turned her attention to Quinn. “My dear, could you take care of a small matter for me?”

  “Of course, Viv.” Quinn kissed Alexa’s cheek. “Until Friday. I’ll be in touch with the details.”

  Outside, Alexa smiled to see Melissa standing at the foot of the steps. “I didn’t get to talk to you all evening.”

  “Yes. They put me in purgatory with an accountant and a judge. All the while, you sat in heaven with a grown up Abercrombie and Fitch model.”

  “Quinn Hutton. He teaches at Dickinson. Didn’t you meet him at your opening?”

  “No, but apparently you did,” Melissa smirked.

  The kid Alexa had met earlier got out of a Jaguar and walked over. “You’re the classic Land Rover, right?” When Alexa nodded her agreement, he took a key from a box and walked away. He yelled over his shoulder to Melissa, “Oh, your Prius is on its way too, miss.”

  “This has been an interesting evening. And I’m not talking about Quinn Hutton.” Alexa commented in a low voice.

  “No kidding.” Melissa giggled. “Jack Nash acts like a used car salesman with an upscale clientele. His wife is a cross between Katherine Hepburn and Morticia Addams. And this place looks like Tony Soprano’s idea of Tuscany.”

  Alexa had to stifle her urge to whoop aloud. “Yeah. A limestone farmhouse would have been better choice for this locale. They could’ve even supersized it for the wow factor. But, you have to give them some credit for thinking outside the box.”

  “Not when the result is this tacky,” Melissa sniffed.

  “At least they didn’t go with a cookie-cutter ranch house. Most wealthy people in this area can’t see past the same square-house-in-a-development approach. They just inflate the size of the house to match the size of their wallets.”

  “Yeah, everyone knows that size matters.” Melissa gave an exaggerated leer. “Badda bing, badda boom.”

  In her inimitable way, Melissa had hit the nail on the head with her silly Tony Soprano references. Obviously, the Nash place had cost a fortune, but they’d crossed that fine line between magnificent and bizarre.

  Alexa was still giggling when she emerged from the end of the faux cypress tunnel. She nodded at the man in a black uniform sitting in the guard booth and turned onto Pine Road, headed for home.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “YOU LOOK LOVELY, ALEXA.” Quinn rose as she approached the table. Bright Japanese lanterns gave the patio of La Bella Cucina a festive air.

  “Good evening, Quinn.” Alexa replied as he kissed her cheek. “Great choice of restaurants. It’s wonderful that the weather’s nice enough for outdoor dining.”

  “Finally. Even though I grew up in New England, I abhor cold weather.”

  “So, your time abroad suited you. After living in the tropics, I can imagine that even Pennsylvania winters are too much for you. My dog, Scout, is in your camp. He has been ecstatic since spring arrived.”

  “You have a dog?”

  “Yes. A big guy—an English mastiff. Perhaps you’ll get to meet someday. Are you a dog person?”

  “A dog person?” Quinn seemed to consider the question carefully. “I’ve never owned a dog. My mother had a poodle when I was a young child, but I don’t remember him well. However, I can definitely say that I find dogs entertaining.”

  The time with Quinn flew by. Alexa finished the last morsel of tiramisu and leaned back into her bistro chair. “Thank you, Quinn, for a lovely dinner, not to mention the briefing about the Children of Light Board. You’ve convinced me that serving on the board would be a good way to contribute to these kids in need. It’s time for me to call it a night though. I’m attending Cecily Townes’ memorial service tomorrow morning. I told Melissa that I would help her set up a photo memory board.”

  Quinn stood as he replied, “I may see you there. I only knew Cecily as a fellow board member, but there’s no doubt that she was a force to be reckoned with.”

  The professor walked Alexa to her car, parked right outside the restaurant. He stopped by the car and turned to face Alexa. For an instant, the patio lanterns bathed Quinn’s face in an eerie red glow. Alexa hesitated a moment as he leaned forward, but the cool restraint of his kiss swept aside her misgivings.

  Quinn broke off the kiss and ran his thumb over Alexa’s cheekbone. “Let’s do this again.”

  Beguiled by his reserve, Alexa agreed. “I’d like that.”

  Alexa had never seen a funeral or memorial service quite like the one for Cecily Townes. She’d expected a fairly small turnout since it was Memorial Day weekend. How wrong she’d been.

  When St. Agnes moved to a new location a few years back, the congregation built the largest church in town. However, today, the new church’s expansive nave could not accommodate all the people who had come to pay their respects to Cecily. When Alexa saw the size of the crowd streaming in for the service, she decided to leave.

  “Melissa, I’m not going to stay. We’ve got the photo boards set up, so you don’t need me anymore. I don’t want to take a space away from someone who knew Cecily.”

  “OK. That’s a kind gesture. But come outside with me a moment and sit before you go.”

  Alexa and Melissa walked past the series of photo-covered foam boards that Melissa had prepared for the me
morial. Shots of Cecily helping youngsters on the streets of Mumbai and Bangkok intermingled with pictures of Cecily as a child and young nun. Cecily’s brother, Richard, had supplied the personal photos.

  The two women avoided the television cameras stationed outside the entrance and walked past several parked limousines. They stopped in a small meditation garden at the far side of the church.

  “Are you going to make it through this?” Alexa sat on a concrete bench and tugged on Melissa’s elbow until she sat down, too. “I know that you and Cecily had grown close. Today is bound to bring up all those terrible memories of finding her body.”

  “I’ll be OK. It just makes me so angry that someone would murder the most selfless woman I’ve ever known. I wish the police would find whoever did this.” Melissa clenched her hands.

  “They need time to investigate.” Alexa offered optimistic words to comfort Melissa, although she wasn’t convinced that the police would ever find Cecily’s killer.

  Melissa looked around the empty garden then grabbed Alexa’s wrist. “I wanted to tell you. Last night something came back to me. I remembered a conversation with Cecily on the day of the RESIST march . . . the day she was killed. Earlier that week, Cecily had asked to look at all my pictures from the Thai leg of our trip for RESIST. She said something vague about wanting to refresh her memory. So I gave her a thumb drive with the photos from our week in Bangkok.

  “When we were standing by the Lincoln Memorial, Cecily mentioned that she had discovered something quite disturbing in the photos. I think she was going to tell me more, but I asked her to hold on a minute. I wanted to take a crowd shot from up on the memorial before the march broke up.

  “That’s when I got arrested, so Cecily never got a chance to tell me what was so disturbing.”

  “You just remembered this last night?” Alexa tried to keep the impatience out of her voice. One of Melissa’s most charming traits was her artsy, often unfocused, approach to life. So Alexa wasn’t surprised that her friend had forgotten what could be a critical piece of information in Cecily’s murder investigation. Still, some of Melissa’s scatterbrained moments could be annoying.

  “Yeah, it just hit me out of the blue. I can’t believe I forgot something that seems so important. But a lot has been happening. I was arrested. We found Cecily dead. I had my opening—the burglaries. I just forgot all about the conversation until last night when I was sorting through the pictures for the photo boards.”

  “It might be important . . . it might not be. But I think you should tell the police.”

  “I’ll call Trooper Taylor. But I’ve thought about what Cecily said, and I think she must have been disturbed by something going on in Thailand. That’s what the pictures would have shown. I can’t imagine that it’s connected to her murder here in Carlisle.”

  Alexa looked at her watch just as strains of organ music wafted out of the church. “Melissa, the service is about to begin. You should get back inside. Call me later if you need to talk.”

  When Alexa arrived at her cabin, she changed into shorts and hiking boots. With Scout at her heels, she struck out into the grove of pines opposite the house. The thick carpet of pine needles muffled their footsteps as Alexa and the big mastiff wandered through the cathedral of towering evergreens. At the church, Alexa had been wiping her brow from the heat of the midday sun. Here, in the pines, the shade kept the forest cool.

  Near the middle of the grove, a shaft of sunlight cut through the big pines. Alexa stopped and plunged an arm through the beam, stirring thousands of dust motes into a luminous dance. “Cecily,” she whispered. “From everything that I know about you, your energy will never fade from this world. Go in peace.”

  On the way back to the cabin, Alexa wondered again why someone would want to kill a woman as beloved as Cecily Townes. She, too, hoped that the police would do exactly what Melissa had wished for: track down the bastard and lock him up forever.

  Chapter Fifteen

  August 14, 1969

  You’re either on the bus or off the bus.

  ―Ken Kesey

  “Hey, babe. Robbie, Phil, and I thought we’d go over to the stage area and check it out. They must still be working on last minute construction. Hear all the hammering?” Ben gestured toward the nearby hill with his tin coffee mug then filled it from a pot on the Coleman stove.

  Sukie looked up from her seat in the door of their tent and nodded. “The pounding woke me up.”

  Ben lowered his voice. “I thought it was the pounding that I gave you.” He made a lewd thrusting move with his hips and laughed when Sukie blushed.

  She reached for Ben’s hand and pulled him down next to her. “We have a whole day before the concert starts. I thought we’d wander around together. The Levi Bloom girls told me that there are a lot of little shops in a wooded area over that way.” She waved her hand toward the back of the field.

  “Yeah. I want to check out the shops, too. JJ said that they’re selling weed and hash over there. But why don’t you spend some time with Nina and Cheryl? I know you wouldn’t be interested in watching them build the stage.”

  “Hey, freak. Ready for our field trip?” Robbie flicked aside the canvas flap and peered into the tent.

  “Ready to roll.” With an exaggerated kiss, Ben pushed Sukie back into the nest of sleeping bags. “You are such a fox. I’ll meet you here later for a trip to the shops,” he said as he scrambled out the door to follow Robbie.

  Alone in the tent, Sukie stared up at the green canvas and surrendered to a brief moment of disappointment at being abandoned. Brushing a tear from her eye, she sat up.

  “Stop acting like some flake. You’re at Woodstock, for God’s sake,” Sukie said aloud and went to find Nina.

  “This place is so groovy.” Willow darted around the buses covered in psychedelic paintings. On a nearby stage, two men were playing flutes while a third provided rhythm on a low, round drum.

  The girl had tagged along when Sukie, Nina, and Cheryl had walked past her campsite. In the full light of day, Sukie realized that Willow was not just petite but quite young. The teenager dazzled with her blonde good looks. She reminded Sukie of a fairy or a wood sprite.

  “Have you guys read “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” about Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters?” Met with blank stares, Sukie prodded, “You know Ken Kesey. I read his book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, in Mr. Carter’s Contemporary American Lit class. Anyway, that bus over there looks just like the Merry Pranksters’ bus.”

  “Great use of color.” Nina, always the artist, pointed to the psychedelic paintings that sprawled across the side of the bus.

  Willow hopped up and down. “Please. It’s summer, and I don’t want to think about books or school. We’re here for music and fun.” The teenager grabbed Nina’s hands to form an arch. Sukie and Cheryl laughed and danced, one by one, beneath their friends’ raised hands. Several people in the area followed them until, soon, everyone had joined in dancing and weaving their way through Willow’s impromptu archway.

  “My arms are killing me, kid,” Nina complained and broke the connection with Willow. Without pause, another couple raised their hands to take the girls’ place.

  Dizzy from the dancing and laughter, Sukie dropped to the ground for a rest. Giggling, her companions joined her. Soon, the four girls lay on their backs in the grass, panting. The lilting, meandering melody of flute and drum continued in the background.

  “That was so much fun.” Willow sat up. “I love to dance. I wanted to take ballet lessons, but Mama said we couldn’t afford it.”

  “Let me tell you, kid. Ballet isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” Nina frowned. “It took me years to convince my mother that those Saturday morning classes were nothing but torture―and that I would never be a prima ballerina.”

  Willow’s mouth opened wide in amazement. “I can’t believe you turned down ballet lessons. One time, at Christmas, my school class went to see The Nutcracker. It was so beautifu
l.”

  “One of the great things about dancing is that you don’t have to be trained as a ballerina. Just now, you danced like a free spirit. It was beautiful, too.” Sukie rolled to a sitting position beside Willow and patted her on the hand.

  “You’re right. That’s why I follow Levi and his band around. They play in clubs and even on the street sometimes. I hang out with them and dance in front of the stage. When I can get enough money to ride the subway into Manhattan, I go over to the Village and sneak into other shows. I saw Bob Dylan once.”

  “Bob Dylan? You’re so lucky.” Cheryl continued to braid a daisy into Sukie’s silver blonde hair.

  “I guess. His music is sort of hard to dance to though.”

  “What’s this?” Nina rose to her feet and peered toward the stage.

  “When did the music stop?” Sukie shielded her eyes against the sun as she looked at Nina.

  “Let’s go closer to the stage. Some guy’s leading exercise classes.”

  “Exercise?” Cheryl moaned, but she followed the other girls as they tiptoed through the group of people seated in front of the stage.

  A thin man with dark blonde hair that flowed to his waist told the assembled crowd that they were going to do yoga, something called the breath of fire.

  The four girls squeezed into a spot to the right of the stage. Sukie followed the man’s instructions, snorting rapidly, until she became dizzy. Taking a break, she stretched out on her side. She bent her elbow, propped up her head, and watched with amusement as her friends tried to keep up with the instructor.

  When the exercise finished, the girls wandered through the expansive campsite.

  “Peace be with you.” A rosy-cheeked woman in granny glasses and braids greeted them as they approached a tent set up as a kitchen.

  “Hello. What’s all this? If you don’t mind us asking?”

  “It’s copacetic, dear. We’re the Hog Farm, a commune from New Mexico. We are here to help with the festival, feed people who might need a meal, and oversee the entertainment on this free stage.”