Victoria smoothed the tablecloth over the crack. “Lucy was killed in Ellen’s house. The killer could reasonably assume Ellen would be there.”
“That would indicate the killer didn’t know either of the two women,” said Smalley.
“Maybe not. Lucy was killed in the pantry, where it’s quite dark,” Victoria continued. “I discovered that Oliver has his own scam in addition to the assessors’. The assessors may not have known about his scam until Delilah Sampson complained about her tax bill. All of them have been stealing tax money.” Victoria looked around the table. No one met her gaze. Several shifted uncomfortably. “That’s all I can think to tell you.”
“I’m afraid we’ve wasted your time, Mrs. Trumbull,” said Smalley. He stood, and the others got up as well. “You’ve given us a lot to think about. Thank you.”
The rest looked everywhere but at Victoria.
“Junior, take the Bronco back to the police station,” Casey ordered. “I need to talk to Victoria.”
“Want me to come by in a half hour, Chief?”
Casey bent down and picked up her gun belt. “If Victoria can hike to the station, I can.”
Junior saluted Casey and Victoria, and left.
As soon as they were gone, Victoria seated herself at the head of the table again where she could see the woodshed door, still ajar. She waited for Casey to say what she had on her mind.
Casey paced the small room, apparently trying to decide how to start. She finally sat down across from Victoria, who held her hands around her empty coffee mug.
“You realize, don’t you, you embarrassed me in front of the guys.”
“I didn’t mean to,” said Victoria.
“Why didn’t you tell me all that stuff first?”
Casey’s face was still flushed. Victoria felt a surge of sympathy. “I didn’t expect them to come calling, Casey. This was information I’ve just put together. When you and they asked me my thoughts, I told you.”
“You have to be careful what you say.”
“Oh?”
“The assessors have nothing to do with the murders.” Casey adjusted her belt and snapped shut the case that held her radio. “Those three ladies have been working for the town for years.”
“A combined total of ninety-seven,” said Victoria.
“The town respects them. You know that, better than I do. They’ve been voted in repeatedly.”
“Because of inertia, not respect.”
“Nevertheless,” Casey went on, “you’ve got to give them credit for dedication. They’re working for the town.” Casey emphasized the last four words.
“They’re working for themselves,” said Victoria. “No one else.”
“You can’t spread the rumors you’re saying about them, Victoria.”
“I don’t spread rumors,” Victoria snapped. “You know I don’t.”
“A few minutes ago you told my colleagues some pretty strong stuff about the assessors and their clerk. And what about Darcy or Emery? You hadn’t told me about him, either. That same guy who was around town some time ago?”
Victoria, offended by the accusation of rumormongering, ignored Casey’s question. “What I told you was not rumor.”
“As my deputy, you’re a representative of the West Tisbury police.” Casey’s voice shook. “You’re held to a higher standard than other citizens. You can’t go around libeling people.”
Victoria rose from her seat. “My personal standards are every bit as high as the police standards. Probably higher. I’m not libeling the assessors.” She slapped her palm on the table. “They and their clerk are stealing tax money. A criminal act. They’ve got to be stopped.”
“You have no proof, Victoria. Until you do, you’re opening up the department and yourself as an individual to one hell of a lawsuit.”
“I have proof.”
“Yeah? And you’re withholding that from me, too?”
“I obtained my proof as a private citizen. If I give it to you, it will most likely not hold up in court because of the way it was obtained.” She glared at Casey. “The police have to go through strict procedures to get the proof I’ve told you exists. I suggest you get started right away, before that evidence is destroyed.”
“Victoria …”
“I explained to the group,” Victoria swept her arm at the empty chairs, “that you must get access to files in Oliver Ashpine’s bottom file drawer. He keeps it locked. Get an outside accountant to go over the files. And do it soon. Oliver is getting wind that something is up.”
“I suppose you’re not going to share this evidence with me?”
Victoria folded her arms across her chest.
Casey sighed and stood, too. “I recognize that stubborn Yankee streak of yours. I guess I don’t want to know how you got hold of it. Breaking and entering?”
“Not at all,” said Victoria. “Of course not.”
CHAPTER 21
Casey marched out of the kitchen and shut the door firmly behind her. Victoria heard her footsteps echo across the bricks of the entry floor, clump down the stone steps, and fade away in the new grass.
She waited for the chief to disappear down the driveway, safely out of sight, before she pushed open the woodshed door. Darcy was crouched behind it, and she almost knocked him over.
She held her hand out to steady him. “They’ve gone.”
Darcy got up slowly, rubbing the calves of his legs. “Cramps,” he explained when Victoria looked concerned. “Interesting.” He stretched his arms over his head and bent from side to side. “Very interesting.”
Victoria still smarted over Casey’s scolding. “I don’t spread rumors.”
“No, of course you don’t.” Darcy sat at the table and continued to rub his legs.
Victoria cleared away the empty coffee cups, took them into the kitchen, and set them on the counter. “Did you learn anything?” she asked when she was seated again.
“I learned that Chief Casey O’Neill is super sensitive about the opinions of ‘the guys.’”
Victoria nodded. “I apparently ruffled her feathers by not informing her first.”
“I also learned that the cops suspect me of something, but they’re not sure what.” Darcy smiled. “And they’re not one bit comfortable with the idea of confronting three little old ladies. Entrenched, respectable, and fragile little old ladies.”
“Those three assessors are no more fragile than I am,” said Victoria, her face set in disapproval. “Stereotyping the elderly, as usual.” She lifted her beaky nose. “Those little old ladies are fully aware of their power. No one dares challenge them.”
“Don’t look at me that way, Victoria. I’m on your side.” Darcy checked his watch. “They’ve probably finished with the oil change by now. I’ve got to get the limo back to Delilah’s.”
Darcy started to get up, and Victoria suddenly remembered what she’d meant to tell him. “There was an interesting development last evening. We surprised Oliver watching a pornographic movie on his computer.”
Darcy sat back with a smirk. “We, Mrs. Trumbull?”
“Howland and I. The actress was Delilah.”
“No way!”
“Howland is at Town Hall now, copying the video.”
Darcy laughed. “The Reverend True’s missus. That explains Oliver’s blackmail plan.”
“If I were she, I would not care to have that movie publicized.”
Darcy looked at his watch again. “I can stay for a few minutes more.” He stood up. “I’ve got to work this cramp out of my leg.”
“Dehydration,” said Victoria. “Drink some water.”
“Can’t hurt.” Darcy went into the kitchen and returned with two glasses of water. “One for you, Mrs. Trumbull.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m going to look into why the pilot, Cappy Jessup, the guy I knew as Frank Morris, was the one to fly Henry to the Island,” said Darcy, sitting down again. “Henry didn’t seem to know him, at least not well.
Was he checking up on Henry? Or Delilah? Or me? Who sent him, the church? If not the church, who? I’ve got to find answers to those questions.” He drank his water. “And there’s another unknown. What do you know about Oliver Ashpine?”
“Unsavory, rude, and officious.”
Darcy held his hands up as if to ward her off. “Don’t hold back on my account.”
Victoria frowned, thinking about Oliver with his painted-on hair and arrogance, blatantly stealing tax money. “It seems likely, to me, that Oliver killed Tillie.”
“To get her job? It’s not as though the scam was paying off hundreds of thousands. At most, we’re talking about a few thousand, if that. Hardly motive for murder. How long had Tillie been the assessors’ clerk?”
“About eight years,” said Victoria. “Not more. She was only in her mid- to late twenties, I would guess.”
“Attractive?”
“Quite pretty.” Victoria thought for a moment. “Long blond hair, brown eyes, a nice trim figure.”
“Would she have known about the assessors’ scheme?”
“Someone besides the assessors had to be in on it, and their clerk and tax collector is the most likely one.”
Darcy raised his eyebrows. “Why tax collector?”
“The town has a system of checks and balances to prevent this very kind of scheme from happening. Separate jobs held by different people.” Victoria sipped her water. “But Tillie held the two critical positions—tax collector and assessors’ clerk.” She thought a moment. “Her brother Lambert has worked for the town for years. He’s likely to know about the scheme, too.”
“The tax collector is an elected position, right?”
“Yes. Tillie was up for reelection every three years. She ran unopposed each time. The assessors made sure of that.”
“When she didn’t show up for work, didn’t anyone report her missing? She’d been dead for five months.”
“She was an independent young woman.” Victoria paused. “Everyone assumed she’d run off with Fred Smith, a man she’d been seeing for several months. His wife reported him missing around the same time.”
“Has Smith shown up?”
“I haven’t heard,” said Victoria.
“I’ll check out Fred Smith.” Darcy pulled a small notebook out of his shirt pocket and wrote in it. “What about Lambert Willoughby?” Darcy continued to write. “Tillie’s brother.”
“Lucy Pease, the woman who was killed, was Lambert Willoughby’s mother-in-law,” said Victoria.
“Odd, his sister and his mother-in-law both killed. Did Willoughby and his mother-in-law get along?”
“As well as could be expected,” said Victoria. “They were civil to one another. Tillie, of course, was no relation to Lucy Pease. The two were what we Vineyarders call ‘connections.’”
Darcy stood up again, still rubbing his calf. “Did Tillie have any other family?”
“Only Lambert, his wife, and their three children, as far as I know. Is the water helping with the cramp?”
“Seems to be.” He went into the kitchen and returned with another glassful. “Yet no one wondered about not hearing from Tillie for five months? They didn’t report her missing?”
“They may have wondered, but apparently did nothing to try to locate her.”
Darcy shook his head as though he couldn’t understand such a family.
Victoria smiled. “What about you, Darcy-Emery-Meyer? Does your family know where you are now and where you’ve been for the past five months—or more?”
“Touché, Mrs. Trumbull. So Tillie disappears,” he continued. “Oliver shows up and the assessors hire him. Where did he come from?”
“He’d had various jobs here on the Vineyard, mostly in the Oak Bluffs town government. Nothing significant. He seemed qualified enough. No one else applied for the position, and based on the assessors’ recommendation, he was hired.”
“Sounds as though he took a drop in pay.”
“I suspect the assessors let him know he’d be supplementing his pay significantly”
Darcy went back to his notes. “Tillie and her brother Lambert both worked in Town Hall?”
Victoria nodded.
“Tillie disappears, no one makes any inquiries, Oliver applies for her job and is hired. Since tax collector is an elected position, how did Oliver end up with that job, too? Just like Tillie?”
“On the assessors’ recommendation the selectmen appointed him to fill Tillie’s unexpired term. He’s up for election this month.”
“Then what?”
“He’s likely to win. He’s running unopposed.”
“A fine kettle of fish,” said Darcy, going back to his notes. “What’s next in our chronology?”
“Oliver took over Tillie’s job as tax collector. The tax bills went out this week. Delilah complained about the high assessment on her property, and Oliver threatened to blackmail her.” Victoria paused and smiled faintly. “You might want to see the film he found to blackmail her with. Howland can make a copy for you, if you’d like.”
“No, thanks just the same.”
“When Delilah met Henry, she thought he was the head of the church and wealthy beyond her fondest dream, but it turned out he’s on a clergyman’s salary. He was after her money, not the other way around.”
“Nice people,” said Darcy. “So she intends to divorce Henry. What does he have to say about that?”
“She hasn’t told him, although I’m sure he suspects. According to Massachusetts law, if they divorce, he gets half of all she owns. Establishing her farm will cut the assessed value significantly.”
Darcy laughed. “Fainting goats and dyed chicks.”
“She’s not stupid,” said Victoria. “And she has a certain sense of style. She’s learned that tractors are available in several colors.”
“A pink tractor,” Darcy said thoughtfully, and went back to his notes. “Would Delilah have known Tillie?”
“Possibly. Delilah’s been here for several years. But I doubt if she ever went into Town Hall before she confronted Oliver a few days ago.”
“Delilah may have known Frank Morris. Her show is filmed in West Virginia, and he may have flown her there.”
“A number of loose ends to tie up,” said Victoria. “We need to get started.”
CHAPTER 22
For several months, Jordan Rivers had been awakened long before dawn by Chickee, the Willoughbys’ rooster. Chickee was housed in a ramshackle pen on the far edge of the Willoughby property, immediately across the narrow dirt road from Jordan’s own property and close to his house. The rooster would burst into sudden loud voice at any time of day or night.
Jordan called on Victoria Trumbull, who was weeding the new plants he’d given her.
“I told you, honesty is invasive,” Jordan said. “You may be sorry.”
“I hope so,” said Victoria, with a smile. “We can use more of it.”
“I admired a stand of honesty in the Willoughbys’ yard and took a handful of seeds,” Jordan continued. “Now I can’t get rid of the stuff. If you think it will help, I’ll scatter seeds around Town Hall.”
He crouched down beside her, pulled a few weeds and tossed them off to one side.
“Let me show you what a black-eyed Susan seedling looks like,” said Victoria diplomatically, retrieving the seedling from Jordan’s weed pile.
“Sorry, Victoria. I’m going crazy with that rooster.”
“I suppose he wakes you early, greeting the dawn?”
“Dawn!” said Jordan. “I wish it were only at dawn. He kept me up all night last night, crowing. He’s not a normal rooster. Everything and anything sets him off. Car lights. A slammed door. An inquisitive skunk. Their kids.” Jordan made a wry face. “His crowing starts up Ashpine’s mutt, who’s part wolf.”
“Wolf?”
“A Jack Russell, actually”
“Mr. Willoughby seems like a reasonable man.” Victoria pointed with her gardening tool. “That’s
a tiger lily seedling, not a weed. Why not suggest that he move Chickee’s pen to the other side of their property?”
“I did. Want me to replant it?”
“Don’t pull them up if you can avoid it, but there are plenty. No great loss. What did Mr. Willoughby say?”
“He demurred. Said there’d always been a chicken coop there, even before I built my house.”
“Would he be willing to get rid of Chickee?”
“I suggested that, too, and the youngest, the three-year-old, started to cry.” Jordan stood up and crossed to the other side of the border and began to yank weeds. “Making Sweetie Pie cry has ensured the permanent enmity of the entire family.”
“What about talking to the animal control officer?”
“I did. I filed a complaint, but Joanie said this is an agricultural town, and chickens are agricultural.”
Victoria was silent, thinking.
Jordan said, “You know that poem of yours, where you were in the city one time and imagined that the sound of traffic was the sound of surf on the south shore?”
Victoria nodded.
“I’ve tried imagining that Chickee’s voice is no different from the sound of the city, sirens in the night, horns honking, brakes screeching, kids screaming, gunshots, that sort of thing. It’s not the same. I bought a white noise machine, but it can’t compete with Chickee.” He held up a plant. “Ragweed?”
“Chrysanthemum. Why not limit yourself to grass.”
He nodded. “I tried earplugs, but they hurt my ears. I tried shutting the windows at night, but that makes it too stuffy to sleep.” He looked up at Victoria, who was patting soil around a plant she’d rescued from his weed pile. “Besides, the glass rattles when Chickee crows and amplifies the sound. I’m going mad, Victoria!”
How ironic, Victoria thought. A rooster was all it took to upset Jordan, when in real life, when not on spring vacation, he dealt equably with school life in the city despite knives, guns, chewing gum, and sass.
“I’ve thought about wringing Chickee’s neck, poisoning him, or shooting him,” said Jordan. “I’d have to get an air gun, of course.”
“I’m surprised that he hasn’t been attacked by skunks or hawks before now.”
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