Death and Honesty

by Cynthia Riggs

  “He’s the only person in town, besides the three of us, who knows about the setting-aside account.” Selena looked down at her hands. “And, of course, Tillie knew.”

  “And Lambert Willoughby, her brother. He knows, of course.” Ocypete turned to Ellen. “Oliver wasn’t at his desk, you said.”

  “Since he wasn’t there,” Ellen stopped drumming her fingers on the table, “I looked up the Sampson tax bill, and, as we thought, the official bill for the town records was based on a fifteen-million-dollar assessment. The bill Miss Sampson should, of course, have received was based on the eighteen million we agreed upon.” Ellen paused and the other two stared at her. “The bill she actually received was based on a twenty-million-dollar assessment.”

  “How … ? Who … ?” Selena began.

  Ellen interrupted. “I assumed Oliver used separate file drawers for the town records and for the setting-aside account, the way Tillie did. The bottom drawer of his filing cabinet was locked, so I used the key Tillie had taped to the bottom of the bookshelf.”

  “Really, Ellen … !” said Selena.

  “I found the bill based on the eighteen million we’d decided on, copied it, and took it down to Miss Sampson.”

  “And?” Ocypete adjusted her skirt.

  “She claimed it was not the same bill she received.”

  “Oh?” said Ocypete.

  “As I said before, the bill she showed me was based on a twenty-million-dollar assessment. Not eighteen.”

  Selena and Ocypete gaped at her.

  Ellen held her glasses case by its chain and swung it back and forth. “I told Miss Sampson that Oliver had made a mistake and we’d speak to him. After she left, I went to the office and found a copy of a third bill, the one she received.”

  “Based on twenty million!” gasped Selena.

  “Three different bills.” Ellen paused and glanced first at Selena, then at Ocypete and repeated, “Three different bills.”

  Ocypete picked up a stack of the property cards, plucked one out at random, and laid it down on the table. “He’s tax collector.”

  Ellen nodded. “Right.”

  “Taxpayers mail checks to him.”

  “Right.”

  “He deposits the checks into the town account.”

  Ellen agreed. “With a certain portion going into the setting-aside account, of course.”

  Ocypete nodded. “Does Oliver have a separate private account?”

  “It would seem so,” said Ellen.

  Ocypete glanced at her cards and plucked out another one. “Tillie’s beginning to look better all the time.”

  “A bit late, isn’t it,” said Ellen.

  “Oliver can’t do that,” Selena cried. “Changing the assessment without our approval. That’s not,” she hesitated, “legal. He simply has to go.”

  Ocypete snorted.

  Ellen smiled. “The selectmen appointed him. They’re the only ones who can fire him. Talk to Denny.”

  “Oliver is Denny Rhodes’s cousin,” said Ocypete.

  “No, no,” corrected Selena. “Denny’s wife is Oliver’s cousin.”

  “How much in taxes are we talking about?” asked Ocypete.

  “A lot.” Ellen jotted some figures on the scratch pad in front of her.

  “I don’t understand,” said Selena.

  “What don’t you understand?” Ocypete muttered. “He’s a greedy bastard.”

  Ellen held up her notes. “His bill to Delilah Sampson, based on a property assessment of twenty million dollars, was around one hundred thousand. If she had paid without question, as she always has, the town would get a little over seventy-five thousand. Fifteen thousand would have gone into the setting-aside account. The remaining ten thousand is not accounted for.”

  “He’s spoiled everything,” muttered Ocypete. “Who else has he overbilled?”

  “You mean … ?” murmured Selena.

  Ocypete turned on her. “Ellen means, Selena dear, that a small difference in assessment of a mere two million dollars has broken the camel’s back.”

  “What shall we do?” Selena wrung her hands. “Perhaps we can call it a terrible misunderstanding?”

  Ellen set her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “We need to have a little talk with Oliver.”

  “Soon,” agreed Ocypete.

  CHAPTER 5

  By the time Delilah emerged from the bathroom with the tearstained damage to her face repaired, Victoria had made up her mind. “I’ll talk to Oliver Ashpine about your assessment. Will you give me a ride to Town Hall?” She glanced down at the knees of her gray corduroy slacks, stained from kneeling by her flower borders earlier that afternoon, and brushed off what dirt she could.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Trumbull. You won’t tell him what I said? I mean, about my farm and divorce?”

  “You needn’t worry about that.”

  “Darcy can drop you off at Town Hall and bring you home again.”

  McCavity, Victoria’s marmalade cat, rubbed up against her. She gave him some fresh cat chow and filled his water bowl. She then left a note for Elizabeth, who was at work.

  Once they were outside, the chauffeur held the limousine door for them. Victoria could see only his mouth, set in a faint, crooked smile. His visored cap shaded his face. Something about him was familiar. Where had she seen him before? She climbed into the backseat, sank into the soft leather upholstery, and stretched out her long legs.

  Delilah slid in next to her. “Town Hall, Darcy.”

  The car wafted them away. Victoria could scarcely feel the ruts and bumps in her driveway. Delilah chattered, but Victoria heard only the rich hum of the car’s engine.

  As they passed the West Tisbury police station, she saw the police Bronco out front. Casey was at work and Victoria felt a pang of regret. She hadn’t ridden shotgun with Casey for more than a week.

  At Town Hall, the chauffeur opened the door and offered Victoria his arm.

  Delilah leaned toward her. “Thanks, Mrs. Trumbull.”

  What was now Town Hall had been Victoria’s school when she was a girl. The downstairs didn’t look much different. There were no desks or slate blackboards, of course. But iron posts still rose from floor to ceiling and the floor was painted the same scuffed green she remembered.

  She climbed the stairs to the second floor. Oliver Ashpine, the assessors’ clerk, had office space in the far corner of the building overlooking Music Street. Padded cloth screens divided his area from the rest of the room. He was hunched over his computer, his back to her. She could see the screen, which seemed to be showing a movie.

  “Oliver!” Victoria announced.

  He started, then tapped a key that darkened the screen and swiveled to face her. “Back again, I see. Is there something else you want?”

  “I need to look at property cards.” Victoria settled herself into the visitor’s chair that faced Oliver’s tidy desk. The top was clear except for a cup holding pencils and pens, a calendar pad with appointments penciled in, and a white pasteboard candy box. She folded her hands over the top of her stick and waited.

  Oliver shoved a pad of yellow forms toward her. “I’m in the midst of something and can’t help you now. You’ll have to fill out a request.”

  “Whatever you’re watching on your computer can wait while you get the property cards for me.”

  Oliver stood and removed his glasses. He was a short, plump man. His black hair was slicked down as if it were painted on his scalp. He swung his glasses by one temple, leaned a hand on the desk, and glared at Victoria through pale blue eyes.

  Victoria waited.

  At last he said, “Why do you want the cards?”

  “I don’t care to tell you why As I’m sure you know, Massachusetts law says you have no business asking me.”

  “Does this have to do with your house?”

  Victoria gazed at him.

  He put his glasses back on and stood up straight. “The cards are not available.”

&
nbsp; “Then I’ll wait until they are.”

  “I believe the assessors are going over them.”

  Victoria looked around the empty room and thought of the black-and-white file box on Ellen Meadows’s dining room table and the property cards spread around. “I assume the assessors haven’t taken those cards out of Town Hall?”

  “I’m busy, Mrs. Trumbull.”

  “I think not.”

  “Assessing properties is complex.”

  “Perhaps you will explain it to me, then,” and Victoria smiled.

  “Mrs. Trumbull, I’ll have the cards ready for you tomorrow. Which properties are you interested in?”

  “Everything west of the airport and east of Tea Lane. You can exclude the properties in the very center.”

  “You want the whole town of West Tisbury, is that it? You’re asking for more than two hundred cards.”

  “I want all of the properties I just mentioned. I’ll wait until you bring them to me.”

  “You’ll have to examine the property cards here,” said Oliver, pointing to the floor.

  “Fine. I’ll photocopy what I need.”

  “That’s fifty cents a copy,” said Oliver.

  “Ridiculous. By law, it’s twenty cents a copy”

  “Twenty-five, then,” said Oliver.

  Victoria took out her checkbook. “Twenty.”

  “No checks.”

  “You’ll take mine.” Victoria filled out the check, leaving the amount blank. “Where do you keep the cards?”

  Oliver paused for such a long time, Victoria wasn’t sure he was going to give in. But he turned abruptly, went to an olive green file cabinet between the two windows overlooking Music Street, opened the top drawer, scrabbled through the files, and finally produced several stacks of four-by-seven-inch cards.

  “As I said, the assessors are working with some of the cards. They’re not all here. You can’t take these out of the building, you know.”

  “Thank you, Oliver.”

  “Use that empty desk. I’ll have someone show you how to operate the copier.”

  “I know how to operate the copier.”

  Victoria found the card for her own property and the one for Delilah’s, several of Delilah’s neighbors’ properties, and several of Victoria’s own neighbors.

  “Find what you were looking for?” Oliver asked.

  At that point the phone rang. Oliver answered. After a long silence, during which he glanced from Victoria to the copier to the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet and back to Victoria, he said to the caller, “I can’t talk now, Ellen. Let me get to another phone.” He punched the hold button and set down the phone.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Don’t disturb anything while I’m gone.”

  He headed downstairs to the one private phone in the building. Victoria immediately went to the filing cabinet and found, in the unlocked bottom drawer that Oliver had been eyeing, two thick folders marked “DS.” She hurriedly copied everything in both folders, and, without looking at them, tucked the copies into her cloth bag and replaced the folders in the bottom drawer. She was about to sit down again when she noticed the white pasteboard candy box. She peeked inside. Fruit jellies. They called the candy Turkish delight when she was a child. She hadn’t had a fruit jelly for a long time. She was just about to help herself to a piece when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. She closed the box quickly and returned to her seat. By the time Oliver returned, she was sitting in her chair, rosy-cheeked but calm.

  Oliver, himself, was pink-cheeked and perspiring.

  “I’ve made copies of a nice selection of cards and will examine them when I get home,” said Victoria. She separated out a dozen pages. “Now, will you please show me the bills you sent out for these properties?”

  Oliver looked at his watch. “I don’t have the time.”

  “I can imagine,” said Victoria. “The bills, please.” She settled back in the chair and thumbed through her photocopies. When she got to Delilah’s property she sat up straight. Oliver was shuffling through manila folders in the top file drawer.

  “Oliver!” she called out.

  “What now?” He shoved some papers from his desk into a folder and went over to the filing cabinet.

  “Would you please explain this?” Victoria held up the copy of Delilah’s card. “Do the assessors know about it?”

  “Mrs. Trumbull,” Oliver said with exaggerated patience. “Do you want me to find the bills or do you want me to explain the property cards …” he looked over at the copy Victoria was holding up and stopped in mid-sentence.

  “Both. Bills first. Is this a mistake on Miss Sampson’s assessment?” She waved her copy at him. “This says her property is assessed at fifteen million dollars. Yet I understand she was billed based on a twenty-million-dollar assessment. And there’s a third bill based on eighteen million. Which is correct?”

  Oliver sighed. “The assessment procedure is complicated, Mrs. Trumbull. Assessors need years of training. Experience.”

  “Oh? To reach three different figures?”

  “Our assessments are based on complex formulas and neighborhood designations. A layman can’t understand.”

  “Surely you agree that something is wrong here,” Victoria insisted.

  Oliver twitched a stack of jammed paper out of the copier and threw it on the floor. “You’ve gummed up this goddamned machine.”

  Victoria gathered up her copies of the bills, placed them in the cloth bag along with the copies of the property cards and files marked DS, thanked Oliver, proceeded carefully down the stairs, and marched out to the waiting limousine. Darcy was standing by the passenger door.

  Oliver pounded down the stairs behind her. “The check!” he shouted, tripping on the bottom step. “You didn’t give me the check!”

  But Victoria was smiling up at the chauffeur and didn’t hear the assessors’ clerk.

  CHAPTER 6

  Victoria set down her heavy cloth bag next to the limousine. She hadn’t realized how many copies she’d made.

  “I’ll put that on the front seat for you, madam,” the chauffeur said.

  Victoria hesitated, then passed her bag to him. The only irreplaceable item in the bag was her notebook, with the start of a sonnet she was working on. While the chauffeur was stowing her bag, she studied what she could see of his face. She could make out only his bright eyes, high cheekbones, and cleft chin. And his mouth, of course, set in that twisted half smile. The chauffeur, Darcy, was taller than she was, well over six feet. He might have been playing the part of a chauffeur in a movie. Except for that smile, he had absolutely no expression.

  Why was he so familiar?

  She took a deep breath and climbed into the backseat. Darcy slammed the door with an expensive thunk. Before they turned onto South Road, Victoria saw his eyes in the rearview mirror, watching her.

  The glass partition that separated the driver from passengers slid down silently. “Madam,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “Miss Sampson has asked that I invite you to tea.”

  His voice was familiar, too, an actor’s deep, resonant voice. Victoria’s uneasiness grew. Then she thought of the unappetizing cold tea she’d left on her table. And the police station where Casey was working without her. Did she want to ride alone with this strangely familiar man? Adrenaline kicked in. Of course she did. “Thank you, Darcy, I’d enjoy that.”

  “Shall I take you directly there, madam?”

  “By all means.”

  He said nothing more. The direction they were going seemed right for the old Hammond place. They turned off North Road between two granite posts onto a dirt track and continued for perhaps a half mile. The limousine came to a fork in the road and paused before turning onto a smaller track. Darcy was watching her in the rearview mirror.

  Victoria sat forward. It had all come back to her.

  She rapped on the partially open glass. “Darcy?”

  He glanced in the
mirror. “Yes, Mrs. Trumbull?”

  “Back there, ‘Two roads diverged …”’

  “Yes, Mrs. Trumbull. ‘I took the one less traveled … .’” He smiled.

  “It’s you, Emery Meyer! Why on earth are you working for Delilah Sampson?” Victoria leaned forward. “Jewels?”

  “Please, Mrs. Trumbull. My name is Darcy.”

  The town clock struck five. Joe Hanover and Lincoln Sibert, two of the regulars on Alley’s porch, checked their watches.

  “Clock’s been running slow for a couple days,” said Joe. He leaned against the porch railing. “What in hell do you suppose is going on with the assessors now?”

  “What do you mean?” Sarah Germaine had stopped at Alley’s on her way home from tribal headquarters in Aquinnah. Today she wore a dressy black sweatshirt with bright feathers painted around the neck and shoulders.

  Joe switched whatever he was chewing from one side of his mouth to the other. “You seen that white limo?”

  “You can hardly miss it,” said Sarah.

  “Belongs to that woman who bought the old Hammond place,” said Lincoln, who was leaning against the door frame. “North Shore. Born-again Christian or something.”

  “Hubby’s the born-again, not her,” said Joe, chewing.

  Lincoln shrugged. “The car’s hers, anyway.”

  Joe spat something off to one side. “Before you got here, the driver waves me over, rolls down the window, and asks the way to Mrs. Trumbull’s.”

  “So?”

  “I seen the guy before. Him and Mrs. Trumbull was pret-ty cozy a while back. Why’s he need to ask how to get to her place?”

  “The same person?”

  “I never forget a face. The guy was even cozier with our dear sweet little selectman, Noodles.”

  “Select-person,” said Sarah. “Her name is Lucretia.”

  “Select-man,” said Joe. “Legal title.”

  “What about the assessors?” asked Lincoln.

  “I’m getting to it. So the limo makes a U-turn and heads for Mrs. T.’s. Twenty, twenty-five minutes later, limo comes back again this way and lets Mrs. T. off at Town Hall. Mrs. T.’s in there almost an hour, the limo comes back, she gets in, and off they go.”