Death and Honesty

by Cynthia Riggs

  A second siren sounded in the distance, and in a short time the West Tisbury Police Bronco pulled up behind the ambulance. Casey emerged, hand on her holstered gun. Junior Norton followed behind her.

  “Okay, everyone, what’s the trouble?” Casey looked down at Oliver and the two EMTs working over him. “Heart attack?”

  Jordan handed Willoughby the rooster.

  “Look at the marks on his neck,” said Victoria. “Bertie must have frightened off an attacker. He can’t be far away.”

  “I’ll call the state police.” Junior slipped outside, radio in hand, and was back shortly. “They’re on their way.”

  “Bertie is telling us someone is in the cellar,” said Victoria. “Is there an outside entrance?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Willoughby. “Bulkhead door out back.”

  “Watch the exits, Junior,” said Casey, unsnapping her holster. “I’ll check the cellar.”

  “No, ma’am. Better let me do that,” said Willoughby, passing Chickee on to Victoria. “Could be dangerous.”

  Casey started to protest. “Too much testosterone around here,” she muttered.

  Victoria smoothed the T-shirt around the rooster’s ruffled feathers.

  “I’ll go with you,” said Jordan, pushing his glasses into place.

  “That’s my man.” Willoughby held out his hand for Jordan to shake. “Miz Trumbull thinks we’ve finally cornered the killer. Ready?”

  “Ready,” said Jordan, hitching up his bicycle trousers. “Is there a light down there?”

  Junior Norton helped the EMTs load Oliver into the Tri-Town Ambulance. The ambulance took off, red lights flashing.

  Victoria set Chickee on an overstuffed chair. The rooster struggled out of the T-shirt, tucked his head under his wing, and dozed off.

  Time passed. There was no sound from the cellar.

  “What’s taking them so long?” asked Victoria

  “I’ll check,” said Casey.

  Before she could open the door, Willoughby and Jordan Rivers came up from the cellar. Willoughby was breathing heavily.

  “Clean got away,” he said between puffs.

  “Could he still be hidden somewhere in the cellar?” asked Victoria.

  “Nope. Cellar’s clean as a whistle. The bulkhead door was open, though. Must’ve got out that way while we was dealing with Ashpine.”

  “Where’s Bertie?” asked Howland, who was sitting at Oliver’s computer studying what he had been looking at.

  “Bertie took off after him,” said Jordan. “We followed him for a short way, but it’s too dark to see anything. He’s a gutsy little dog.”

  Casey turned to Victoria. “I’m going to the hospital to check on Oliver. Wait here for the state cops.”

  “And I’m going to my place and get a six-pack,” said Willoughby. “Want a Bud, Miz Trumbull?”

  “That sounds lovely,” said Victoria.

  “I’ll take care of Oliver’s dog while he’s in the hospital,” said Jordan.

  Howland moved his chair, and in doing so, knocked over a box that was next to the desk. A dozen or more cards spilled out. Howland picked one up. “Property cards,” he said. “What was Ashpine doing with these?”

  “They belong in Town Hall,” Victoria said.

  A terrific scratching and growling sounded at the front door, and Victoria opened it. Bertie stood there with a scrap of dark cloth between his teeth. He laid the scrap down at Victoria’s feet, and looked up expectantly at her. She picked it up and let the dog in. The cloth was bite-size and black. She smoothed it out. Cotton sweatshirt material, fuzzy on one side, smooth on the other, and clearly torn from sweatpants.

  “Good pup,” said Victoria, patting his sturdy flank. The dog wriggled, stumpy tail wagging.

  “About the only good thing I can say about Jack Russells is they’re smart,” said Willoughby, who came in after Bertie, carrying the beer. “He went after the guy. Have a beer, Miz Trumbull.” He wrenched up the pop-top and handed the can to her. “Want a glass?”

  “No, thanks. This is fine.” Victoria tucked the scrap of fabric into her pocket without thinking and took the cold beer.

  “Guess this proves you’re wrong about Ashpine being the killer, Miz Trumbull. Leaves us with Reverend True, just like I told you.” He held his can of beer up. “Cheers!”

  “Cheers!” said Victoria, and took a few sips. “It can’t be Henry. He got out of the hospital only a few hours ago. He could hardly run through the woods in the dark.”

  “Told you, he’s a sneaky bastard. How about a Bud, Atherton?” he called out. “One with your name on it.”

  “No, thanks,” said Howland. “Victoria, want to see what Ashpine was looking at when he was attacked?”

  Victoria was still engaged in the Henry versus Oliver debate. “Henry was weak, extremely weak, when I saw him in the hospital this morning. I’m surprised they discharged him.”

  “Don’t believe anything he says or does,” Willoughby said.

  “That’s true.” Victoria nodded, recalling Henry’s refusal to press charges against his would-be killers. “But he wasn’t faking his feebleness.”

  Howland turned again to Victoria. “Ashpine was looking up appraisals, including the assessors’ and Willoughby’s houses.”

  “Mine? The dirty rat,” said Willoughby.

  Victoria went over to the computer and Howland moved aside to give her room. The screen showed a photograph of a house and listed the address, owner’s name, a description of the buildings and land, and the appraised value.

  “Interesting,” said Victoria, shifting to a second screen, then a third.

  “Trying to squeeze more taxes out of us,” said Willoughby. “That’s what he was doing.”

  After studying a fourth screen, Victoria turned to Howland. “Would you please take me home?” She handed him her unfinished beer.

  “Sure,” said Howland, setting her beer on the table.

  “You can take that Bud with you, Miz Trumbull,” said Willoughby. “Something for the road.”

  “Not right now, thanks,” said Victoria.

  “Hadn’t you better wait for the state police?” asked Jordan.

  “You deal with them, Jordan. Come, Howland.”

  Outside, Howland held his car door open and Victoria got in.

  “What’s the hurry, Victoria? Are you okay?”

  “I think I know where the intruder went after escaping from the cellar. There’s an ancient way behind the Willoughbys’ that leads to State Road across from the New Ag Hall. He must have known about it. The attack on Oliver was all planned out.”

  “He must know the area pretty well,” said Howland. They jounced over the washboard surface of Simon Look Road, turned onto Old County Road, passed Whippoorwill Farm and the school, and turned onto Scotchman’s Lane.

  “Hurry!” said Victoria. “If we’re lucky, we may be able to intercept him.”

  Scotchman’s ended at State Road, and Howland stopped at the stop sign and waited. A blue pickup truck passed, heading toward Vineyard Haven. “Which way, Victoria?”

  Victoria was trying to decide whether to turn right or left when a light-colored SUV whizzed past them, well over the speed limit.

  “I’ve seen that car around Town Hall,” said Howland, as the taillights disappeared around Deadman’s Curve. “Subaru. I’m pretty sure it belongs to one of the town employees.”

  “Follow him,” said Victoria. “Don’t lose him.”

  “There’s only one way he can go until he gets to Brandy Brow.”

  They were well behind the Subaru when it turned right at Brandy Brow. The car slowed in front of Alley’s and turned into Ellen’s driveway.

  “I should have known,” said Victoria.

  “Want me to park behind him?”

  “Her,” said Victoria. “Park behind her and call Casey. Tell her to meet us here with the state police.”

  “Right,” said Howland. “I’m going in with you.”


  “Wait here. There won’t be any trouble now. Keep an eye on things, in case I’m wrong.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Victoria climbed the steps to Ellen’s side door, brushing past the lilac bushes that grew on either side. It was a little over a week ago that she’d climbed those same steps and found Lucy’s body. It seemed much longer. She took a deep breath and knocked. She waited, then knocked again. When there was still no answer, she tried the door. It was unlocked and she peered into the neat kitchen.

  “Ellen?” she called from the doorway.

  No answer.

  She went hastily through the tidy downstairs rooms, the dining room, the unused parlor, feeling very much the intruder. Hesitantly, she climbed to the second floor. There, she heard a flurry of activity. A door slammed. Drawers opened and shut. In the front bedroom someone was breathing in heavy, labored gasps. Victoria headed that way. Through the half-open door she saw a suitcase on the bed with clothing being hurled into it.

  “Ellen?” she called.

  The activity stopped abruptly.

  “Mrs. Trumbull?”

  Ellen was standing, her arms full of clothing. Perspiration trickled down her forehead. Her normally neat hair straggled out of its pins in disorder. She wore a rumpled and soiled black sweat suit.

  “No!” she said, and dropped into the chair next to the bed. She held up her hands as though to protect herself. “No, no, no!”

  Victoria remembered Bertie’s gift and pulled the scrap of black fabric from her pocket. “This is yours, isn’t it?”

  Ellen looked down at her left pants leg where there was a ragged tear. “The dog attacked me.”

  “Did he hurt you?” asked Victoria.

  “Merely a scratch. If he hadn’t gone after me …”

  “Better put some antiseptic on it. Can I get it for you?”

  Ellen took a deep breath and let it out. “In the bathroom cabinet.”

  Victoria returned with a brown bottle of peroxide and a handful of cotton balls.

  Ellen held out her hand for the bottle. “I’ll take care of it, Victoria. If only that dog …”

  “It was more than Bertie,” said Victoria. “We were closing in on you.” Victoria gestured at the open suitcase. “You can’t run, you know. More than anyone else, you must know that.”

  Ellen’s eyes darted from one side of the room to the other, from the strewn clothing on the floor, to the suitcase on her rumpled bed, and back to Victoria. She took another deep breath, as though to store up as much free air as she could. She held the peroxide bottle, unopened. “I made one mistake too many,” she said.

  “Your mistakes go back a long time,” said Victoria. “An avalanche you couldn’t stop once you’d set it in motion.”

  “You know, now, that I killed them, don’t you.”

  “Yes,” said Victoria.

  “Aren’t you afraid of me?” Ellen looked up. “Knowing what I’ve done? What I’m capable of doing?”

  “You won’t harm anyone else,” said Victoria. “You’ve come to the end and you know it. You can’t escape.”

  Ellen sighed, and tossed a sweater she’d been holding onto the bed.

  Victoria sat down on the end of the bed. “You surprised Oliver while he was looking at your property card, didn’t you,” she continued. “Oliver had taken the cards home with him, including yours.”

  Ellen looked away.

  “I saw what was on your card.”

  “Then you know,” said Ellen.

  “Yes. You no longer own your house.”

  Ellen looked away.

  “You’d better treat that dog bite,” said Victoria, indicating the wound. “Even a scratch can become nasty.”

  Ellen twisted the bottle cap and stopped.

  “How did you lose it?” Victoria asked softly.

  “An unwise, stupid investment.” Ellen closed her eyes.

  Suddenly, everything made sense to Victoria. “TruArt Productions?”

  “Fine-art films. A sure thing, he told me. A risk-free money maker. A cultural asset.” She laughed without humor. “The Reverend True showed me a slick, bound prospectus, and I fell for it.”

  “You had a lot of money to hide, didn’t you?”

  “Not only mine, but the other girls’, too.”

  “Ocypete and Selena?”

  “I talked them into sinking their money into TruArt. I had more than a hundred thousand dollars of my own I’d saved in cash …”

  “Cash!?” said Victoria.

  “Yes.” Ellen smiled. “I was trying to avoid a paper trail to cover up for having so much cash. I even ‘sold’ my house to him with the understanding that the transaction was in name only. He assured me that the house was still mine. I trusted him, and he cheated me. He lied and sold my house out from under me to pay his bills.”

  Victoria whistled softly. “You’ve lost everything.”

  Ellen nodded.

  Victoria said, “Henry is paying huge sums to the mob for so-called protection. Far more than his company is taking in. He doesn’t dare not pay. Do you want me to dress your wound?”

  “No. No, I’ll do it.” Ellen unscrewed the cap the rest of the way and poured peroxide onto the cotton balls. She pulled up the torn leg of her sweatpants.

  Victoria frowned. The wound was not a mere scratch. It was a jagged slash above her ankle, flesh torn to the bone. Blood had poured into Ellen’s running shoe and the wound was still oozing blood.

  “That needs stitches,” said Victoria. “And you’ll have to get a tetanus shot.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “We’ve got to stop the bleeding. Now. I’ll bind up your ankle until we can get you to a doctor.” She went to the bathroom and returned with a roll of gauze. She pulled a chair over for Ellen to set her foot on, and knelt beside her.

  “I can understand your anger at Henry,” Victoria said as she wrapped gauze around Ellen’s ankle, “but why didn’t you kill him, rather than the pilot? Not that I condone any killing.”

  “I intended to kill Reverend True.” Ellen winced as Victoria pulled the gauze tightly over the wound. “I thought the pilot was the reverend. Another mistake.”

  “How could you possibly mistake the pilot for Henry? They weren’t at all alike.”

  “I’d never met Reverend True. I’d only talked to him on the phone and corresponded with him.”

  “I’m not hurting you, am I?” asked Victoria.

  “That’s all right. Someone told me Reverend True was on Island, so I called him, disguising my voice. I told him I was an admirer of his television show and I wanted to meet him and get his autograph. I never gave him my name, of course.”

  “Didn’t he seem suspicious of you?”

  “In retrospect, he must have been. I think he sent the pilot in his place, sensing something was wrong.” She looked down as Victoria finished wrapping the gauze around her ankle. “Thanks, Mrs. Trumbull.”

  Victoria got to her feet again. “I suppose after that Henry was very careful.”

  Ellen nodded. “I didn’t get another chance.”

  “He thought Delilah’s chauffeur had killed the pilot, you know. I don’t think he suspected you for a moment.”

  “When I called him, I said I was visiting the Island and would love to see his grounds. He agreed to meet me around sunset by his pond, one of his favorite times.” She lifted her foot off the chair. “I realize, now, that he wanted it dark, in case I’d seen pictures of him.”

  “As an assessor, you must know that property well,” said Victoria.

  “I had walked every inch of it, long before Delilah Sampson bought it. That evening, I hid in the underbrush. When the person I thought was the reverend showed up, I strangled him. And it wasn’t my intended victim after all.”

  Victoria shivered.

  Ellen noticed the shiver. “I know it seems cold-blooded to you, Victoria, but I was trained to kill.”

  “You were in the military, weren’t you?”

/>   “Intelligence.”

  “Do you think you can walk all right?”

  “You’re really a pretty good medic, you know,” Ellen said, examining the bandage. She got slowly to her feet. “I suppose the police are waiting for me?”

  Victoria nodded. “I’ll ask them to take you directly to the hospital. But before we go, I have a few other questions. Sit down again.”

  “I think I know what you’re about to ask,” Ellen said, as she slumped back into her chair. “I moved to West Tisbury after a twenty-year career in the military, still in my forties. I wanted to do my bit for my community. I ran unopposed for assessor, a job nobody wanted, and naturally I won. Selena and Ocypete were already in office. We three hit it off, early on. What we called our ‘setting-aside account’ started entirely by accident. We’d overbilled a taxpayer by mistake, and fully intended to refund his money. But he never questioned the overpayment.” She paused for several moments. “That’s how it started. After that, we targeted only a few people each year.”

  “Did anyone ever question the bills?”

  “A few. Not many. It was quite a modest scheme until Oliver Ashpine indulged in his over-the-top scam.”

  “How did Tillie get involved?”

  “Once we saw how easy it was to skim off a few thousand here and there, we decided it was a foolproof way to supplement our incomes.” She got to her feet again. “I suppose I should change my clothes.” She looked down at her torn, bloodstained pants and muddy, blood-soaked shoes.

  “Do you need any help?”

  “I think I have everything that I need right here.” She indicated the heap of clothing on the bed. “Actually, this is all I have left.” As Ellen changed her clothes she continued to talk. “We realized, as we got more ambitious, that we needed the support of the tax collector, as well as a trustworthy clerk. Lambert Willoughby, who works in Town Hall, suspected what we were doing, so we had to cut him in. Lambert recommended Tillie, his sister, and she worked out perfectly. She couldn’t have been more trustworthy.”

  “Trustworthy, I see,” Victoria repeated. “When did that change?”

  “With Reverend True. Tillie wanted to be a movie star, and the reverend told her that his videos would be a sure entree into Hollywood. She decided she needed money to go to California, to buy a wardrobe, to take lessons, to rent an apartment. She started to pressure us for a larger share of the setting-aside account. Then she threatened to tell the selectmen what we were doing. We couldn’t tolerate blackmail, so she simply had to go.”