Vultures at Twilight

by Charles Atkins

  ‘Are you ready?’ I asked, buttoning my chocolate brown leather coat.

  ‘I am,’ said Aaron as he joined me hatless in the hall. ‘I’m not wearing this,’ he said, stuffing the red, green and orange stocking cap into the pocket of his navy blazer.

  ‘It’s a little loud,’ I agreed, ‘but remember, there are few people in this world who will ever love you enough to actually knit you something.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, his voice low, ‘but next time see if you can’t get her to pick better colors. Black is good. And ditch the pompoms.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ wondering why he thought I’d have input into yarn selection. We watched as Ada made the circuit of her condo, turning out lights and checking to make sure her electric teakettle and shredder were unplugged. I’d seen her do this so many times, it seemed dance-like, and bordered on obsessive.

  ‘I know I’m forgetting something,’ she said. ‘You sure you wouldn’t rather I fix something?’

  Aaron shot me a glance, which let me know he had few illusions about his grandmother’s culinary skills. Ada had many talents, cooking was not among them.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘We’re going. My treat.’

  ‘If you insist.’ She joined us at the door. ‘And don’t you look nice,’ she commented and proceeded to pinch her grandson’s cheek. ‘What did you do with that hat? It’s Merino wool; I made it myself.’

  ‘Grandma,’ he complained.

  ‘Sorry, but it’s nice to see you in something other than jeans and a tee shirt.’

  ‘You said I couldn’t wear them to the restaurant.’

  ‘True, and you look very handsome,’ she said, taking in his blazer, chinos and button-down light blue oxford-cloth shirt.

  On the way to my car, Ada stopped every few steps to uproot weeds that had grown through cracks in the cement sidewalk. ‘You would think,’ she commented, ‘with the fees we pay, they could take better care of the grounds.’

  ‘They used to. Things have slipped.’

  ‘True,’ she agreed. ‘I wonder why? I mean yes, the economy tanked, but it’s not like our fees have gone down. They raised them again last year. So what gives?’

  ‘Priorities,’ I offered as I clicked the button for the car locks. ‘Let’s face it; we’re two of the youngest residents. This place is getting more and more geriatric. At the last homeowner’s association everyone was focused on funding the ambulance and more ramps and handrails on the walking paths. Something has to give, like weeding the grounds.’

  Aaron opened the car door and looked around. ‘It is kind of weird that this is just a place for old people . . . like a ghetto.’

  Ada sighed. ‘It is, our own little Twilight Town.’

  I slid behind the wheel and looked at her. ‘You’re really thinking of moving back to the city.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied, meeting my gaze.

  I had the distinct sense she wanted to say more and didn’t. I assumed because Aaron was there. And for the same reason I kept my thoughts hidden, like: what would I do if Ada left? And why did the topic make me so sad?

  It was a quick ride to Pilgrim’s Mall, the retail hub of Pilgrim’s Progress. It houses several excellent restaurants and shops, a three-screen movie theatre and a series of elegant courtyards where venders peddle everything from sunglasses to vitamins. The design, which includes faux pushcarts, was lifted from Boston’s Faneuil Hall Marketplace. It was scenic and safe and made it possible to take care of your shopping without ever leaving the community.

  Tonight we headed toward Bayberries, an old Grenville restaurant that had relocated to the mall. It was one of my favorites.

  ‘Let’s look in the bookstore first,’ Ada suggested. ‘Our reservations aren’t for another fifteen and I want to see the papers.’

  As we meandered toward the Nutmeg Bookshop, Aaron spotted something dangling on a yew hedge. He went to investigate.

  ‘Look at this!’ he shouted, bringing over what appeared to be a piece of jewelry that glittered in the late-afternoon sun.

  I looked over Ada’s shoulder as she examined his find. It was a gold locket with a blue-enameled dove surrounded by concentric rays of diamond chips.

  ‘Oh my,’ Ada commented, ‘someone will be missing this.’

  ‘It’s lovely,’ I agreed. ‘But what was it doing in the hedge? If it fell off its chain, it would be more out in the open.’

  Aaron retraced his steps looking for the chain. We watched as he pushed into the tangle of sculpted yews.

  ‘Watch out for your jacket,’ Ada cautioned as he ferreted in the greenery.

  When he emerged, he held two ladies’ pocket watches.

  Ada and I looked at each other as he handled the exquisite Victorian timepieces.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ I commented as I took one of the watches and opened the engraved case. I grabbed my reading glasses and saw that it was clearly stamped fourteen carat.

  ‘Did you see anything else?’ Ada asked, her expression worried.

  ‘No, but it’s really tight in there.’

  Ada reached up and smoothed back her grandson’s bangs, picking out small twigs and bits of leaf. ‘We need to bring these to the security desk,’ she commented. ‘I have a sick feeling about this.’

  ‘You think someone was robbed?’ I asked.

  ‘What else could it be? How sad. I hope no one was hurt.’

  With Aaron’s eyes peeled on the underbrush, we shifted directions from the bookstore and headed to the business office.

  As we neared, I could see that the usually deserted storefront, where the community’s activities and trips were posted on a wall of cork, was bustling.

  ‘Marge,’ I called out to a member of our book club, who was seated on a folding chair in a line that spread back from the door. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Jewelry,’ she said, pulling out a pair of jet earrings in the shape of teardrops. ‘I found these by my mailbox.’

  ‘Ada’s grandson found some things, too. Nice pieces, actually.’

  Another woman overheard our conversation and added, ‘It’s been like this all day.’

  ‘Where’s it coming from?’ I asked.

  ‘The police are taking statements. That’s why we’re waiting,’ offered Marge. ‘I’ve been here for over an hour. If I were a less honest person, I would have taken my earrings and kept them. They’ve been pretty insistent that we don’t leave.’

  ‘Who’s been insistent?’ asked Ada as she tried to look over the throng of gray and silver-haired heads that crowded the doorway.

  ‘They know something,’ Marge continued. ‘When they took my name and address, I got the sense that this was part of something serious.’

  ‘Who were the officers?’ I asked.

  ‘One of them was little Kevin Simpson, although I probably shouldn’t call him that,’ said Marge. ‘He never was the brightest lamp,’ she continued, drawing on her forty-two years of teaching third grade at Old Haven Elementary, ‘but bless his little heart, he always tried. He was at least thoughtful enough to bring out chairs.’

  She had a point; over the years Kevin had helped Bradley fix a number of minor scrapes for his patients. What Kevin may have lacked in IQ points, he made up for with a genuine caring and respect for those in his community.

  ‘You said there were two,’ I prompted, wondering who was with Kevin.

  ‘There are,’ she said. ‘The other’s a woman detective. She’s not from Grenville. Or if she is, I’ve never seen her before.’

  As if on cue, the door to the office opened and a short woman with dark curly hair in a boxy gray suit looked down the line. Our eyes connected for a brief moment. ‘We don’t have any women officers, let alone a detective.’ I knew that for a fact, as I never miss a town meeting and I habitually review every line of the budget. Bradley was the same. While it may seem old fashioned, I was raised with the Jeffersonian philosophy, that citizens have a duty to be involved. In all the years that I h
ad plowed through the police-force budget, I had never seen the name of a woman, aside from clerical help. ‘She has to be from the state police. Why would they be involved?’ Not liking the answer that came to mind. Something very bad has happened here. Which was a gross understatement, considering what Ada had told me about poor Philip Conroy. This had to be why the state was here, but what possible connection could there be between the murder of Philip and this jewelry?

  ‘No idea. But if I were you,’ Marge advised, ‘don’t let them know you’re here and go get something to eat. At this rate, we’ll be here for hours.’

  ‘Well –’ I checked my watch – ‘we do have reservations.’

  ‘Run away,’ said Marge, with a smile. ‘If anyone says anything, I’ll cover for you.’

  ‘Thanks.’ And with Ada and Aaron in tow, we moved quickly and somewhat guiltily away from the crowded office.

  ‘What is going on?’ Ada muttered as she veered from the direction of the restaurant and back toward the bookshop.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I called out.

  ‘Let’s get a paper. Too many strange things. Something bad is happening.’

  ‘Like what?’ Aaron asked.

  She looked at him and then at me. ‘I’ll tell you over dinner.’

  I waited while Ada assembled a stack of papers. She grabbed everything: The Grenville Weekly Buyer’s Guide, The Pilgrim’s Progress Reporter, The Hartford Courant and The Brattlebury Register. Then, almost as an afterthought, she added a Times.

  ‘Ada, you’re not going to . . .’

  ‘I just want to check a few things.’

  Aaron chuckled. ‘You still spread papers all over the table?’

  ‘Rude, isn’t it?’ I commented.

  ‘She’s always done it,’ he said. ‘Mom says it used to drive Grandpa crazy.’

  ‘I like to stay informed; is that a crime?’ And with her papers tucked under her arm, she pushed open the double doors that led into one of the mall’s covered courtyards. From there it was a quick walk to the buttermilk-blue clapboard façade of Bayberries.

  Once inside, Curtis Simpson, proprietor and Kevin’s older brother, ushered us past the wood-burning fire to our seats. ‘Lillian, Ada, good to see you. Quite the evening, isn’t it?’ he commented, whilst handing us pseudo-parchment menus.

  ‘You mean the jewelry?’ I asked, savoring the warm smells of fresh-baked rolls, and slow-cooked meats and stews.

  ‘That and two murders.’

  I sat dumbfounded with a sick feeling in my stomach as he turned over our water glasses and motioned for the busboy.

  ‘Philip Conroy I knew about,’ said Ada. ‘Who’s the second?’

  He eyed Ada’s stack of papers. ‘It’s probably not in there yet, although if you have the late edition of The Courant, or The Brattlebury Register, there may be something.’

  ‘Who? Who?’ Ada persisted.

  ‘I don’t know if you knew her . . . Mildred Potts.’

  ‘Oh my god,’ said Ada, making a dozen connections at once. ‘That explains the jewelry.’

  Curtis stared at her. ‘How could you know that?’

  ‘She was robbed, right?’ Ada asked.

  ‘Yes, but you think that’s her jewelry showing up?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, opening her purse and pulling out the locket and pocket watches. ‘My grandson found these in the bushes outside the mall.’

  ‘I know,’ the proprietor said. ‘It’s been like this all day. Like an Easter egg hunt.’

  ‘When Aaron found these,’ she continued, ‘my first thought was that someone’s apartment had been robbed. But if you look close –’ she brought one of the watches up close to her eyes – ‘you can see traces of some sort of adhesive, like they use for price tags. So that was one thing, and then both the watches and the locket are initialed, but they’re all different initials, and not even close. See, this one is RRS, this is TLH and the locket has BT. Plus, they’ve all been recently cleaned. No one I know cleans their jewelry; too much bother. Anyway, it’s clear they came from a shop. Mildred – who, now that she’s dead, I will not say bad things about her character – did have the best antique jewelry in town.’

  Curtis stared at her. ‘You should have been a detective.’

  ‘Yes,’ I commented proudly, while trying to quell my darker thoughts; this is Grenville, people don’t get murdered here. This can’t be happening. ‘Our very own Miss Marple.’

  ‘Not her,’ Ada said. ‘Let me be the Helen Mirren one. She’s still got some miles on her. And so do I.’ And ripping off a piece of warm bread, and dipping it in the garlic-and-olive oil, she smiled at me. ‘And so do you.’

  ELEVEN

  ‘One moment, Mrs Campbell.’ Police Chief Hank Morgan’s secretary put me on hold.

  ‘I’ll wait,’ I told her, not certain that I would have the resolve to call again, but knowing that this was something I had to do, and not entirely certain why. After all, this wasn’t any of my business. But Hank and his wife Joanne – who’d died of breast cancer some years back – were old friends. A soft-rock station played a watered-down version of ‘Strawberry Fields’. The line clicked twice, and for a moment, I thought I had been disconnected.

  A deep male voice boomed. ‘Lil, how the hell are you?’

  ‘Not too bad, Hank.’ Which wasn’t the truth considering two people I knew had just turned up dead. I pictured the robust, silver-haired Chief of Police who had headed up our diminutive force for the past twenty-five years, and who’d been a frequent golf partner of Bradley’s.

  ‘What’s on your mind, Lil?’

  ‘Hank, I know this is pushing it, but I wanted some information on the murders.’ As the words left my mouth I realized how ludicrous and inappropriate this must sound to him. But I needed to know: what the hell is going on in my home town? And more importantly: what are you doing about it?

  His tone shifted from hail-fellow-well-met to something more serious. ‘Why would you want to know that, Lil? Taking on a new career as a reporter?’

  ‘Call it a favor, but I knew both of the victims. In fact,’ I continued, trying to spark his interest, and wondering if I’d ever told him about my long-put-to-bed dreams of becoming a journalist, ‘I saw Mildred the Friday before she was murdered.’

  ‘You don’t say? In her shop?’

  ‘No,’ I said, and I laid out the ongoing saga of Evie’s estate. ‘Why would someone kill her, rob her, but then throw out, or give away all the jewelry?’

  ‘That’s the big question, isn’t it?’ He paused. ‘But you’re making a number of assumptions that could be wrong.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘For starters, we’ve recovered less than fifty pieces of jewelry. According to her daughter . . . and Lil, I’m telling you this as a friend; it’s not for general consumption.’

  ‘My lips are sealed.’

  ‘Good. Supposedly, over five hundred pieces were taken. Whoever did it made a clean sweep. So either there’s a lot more hidden around town, or someone stands to make a tidy profit.’

  ‘Hard to fence, don’t you think?’ I asked. ‘Mostly antiques and a lot of it has initials. You’d think it would be easy to trace.’

  ‘True, at least locally. But if you brought it to a different market – say New York or Boston – no one would be the wiser.’

  ‘It has to be someone who knows antiques,’ I offered.

  ‘Stands to reason.’

  ‘Do you think there’s a connection to Philip Conroy?’ Not wanting to picture the handsome man, who I’d often see at the grocers or the Brantsville flea market.

  ‘It’s not clear,’ he said. ‘We haven’t had a murder since Billy Paddock shot his wife, and that was a good five, maybe six years ago. To have two together, makes you wonder.’

  ‘That, and they were both high-end dealers.’ I was trying to keep the anxiety out of my voice.

  ‘Correct. Lil, I’ve got to put you on hold, I’ve got another call.’

 
; Before I could respond, I was back with the mellow melodies. It was all Beatles tunes, songs I’d played over and over as a teen, wearing down 45’s on a cheap mono player and dancing like a fool. As a sanitized ‘Twist and Shout’ played I thought about connections between the deaths of Philip and Mildred.

  It had been the major topic of discussion when Ada had popped in earlier to show me a small blurb in this morning’s Brattlebury Register about Philip Conroy:

  Local Antique Dealer Slain

  The partially decomposed remains of Grenville antique dealer Philip Conroy were discovered earlier today by a local gamesman. Clarence Hathaway, of Grenville, who had been fishing in the Nillewaug River, stated, ‘My dog caught wind of something, and before I could stop him he started to drag a body out of the river.’

  Mr Conroy was positively identified through fingerprints and DNA matching. The exact cause of death has not yet been determined, but the Medical Examiner’s office has deemed it a homicide.

  When asked to comment, state authorities reported that they were following a number of leads, but had not yet made an arrest.

  Tolliver Jacobs, a local television celebrity and Mr Conroy’s partner at the world-renowned Grenville Antiques, was unavailable for comment.

  Mr Conroy is survived by his parents, Estelle and James Conroy.

  Ada had read and reread the article trying to glean any information from the vague text. ‘There is nothing here we don’t know,’ she’d fumed. ‘They almost make it sound like Tolliver had something to do with it.’

  ‘Well,’ I had said, ‘he was the closest. They have to follow up with that. And you noticed how they didn’t call Philip his husband.’

  Ada had become quiet. ‘That poor man. I just wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I just wasn’t thinking,’ she’d repeated. ‘That poor man is probably the focus of the investigation. I wonder if I shouldn’t make other arrangements for Evie’s estate?’