Murder on the Brewster Flats

by Aaron Paul Lazar

  “Oh my God,” Beckett pointed behind us. “Look.”

  I chanced a glance backwards. An enormous yacht lay on its side about five hundred feet behind us, surrounded by various sailboats, motorboats, and kayaks. Ahead, I spied a similar collection of watercraft dumped in the dunes and scattered along the shore.

  Not a pretty sight.

  We roared along in the buggy, passing through the private beach of The Seacrest. I glanced up at the land beyond the dunes, glimpsing the barn and the cabin where Jack and Scout lived. The family mansion loomed tall and stately behind it.

  Beckett became more anxious as we grew closer, leaning forward with eyes focused on a distant point.

  “You feeling okay, Beckett?” I turned the buggy up onto the softer sand to circumvent the rock jetties leading to Paines Creek Beach.

  He nodded, his jaw set. “I just need to see her.” His voice cracked on the last few words. “And I want to meet my son.” His chest heaved and he swiped at his eyes. “His name’s Mason.”

  “He’s a beautiful boy. Hang tight. We’re almost there.”

  At the end of the jetty, I turned the wheel up the hill toward the kayak and canoe stands. Sadly, no kayaks remained tied to the stand. I prayed they’d removed them before the storm and that they weren’t scattered about the town like colorful tinker toys thrown by a toddler in a tantrum.

  The saltbox house came into view, and I heaved a huge sigh of relief when I saw it had weathered the storm with no obvious damage to its structure. The yard was littered with trees and debris, as expected. A few windows were broken on the seaward side. But other than that, it seemed okay.

  We passed through the beach parking lot and curved up the narrow lane toward the house, pulling up next to a cherry red kayak and a lime green canoe that both stood upright in the wet mud, as if they’d been purposefully arranged as a teepee lawn ornament.

  That answered the question about the kayaks.

  I idly wondered where the other two-dozen boats had ended up while we leapt out of the buggy and ran to the front door.

  No one swung the great door open and jumped into my arms, as I’d been picturing on the drive from the Waterfords’ place. I imagined my wife would have heard us approach, run to the door, and that we’d both cry with relief because we made it through the ordeal.

  Maybe she was helping Jane with the baby.

  I didn’t stand on ceremony, didn’t knock or pull the ringer. With Beckett on my heels, I quickly depressed the iron thumb latch and leaned my shoulder against the heavy door. It creaked open.

  “Camille!” I called. “I’m back.”

  Beckett surged around me. “Jane?”

  For a brief second I worried about him. Would he stay in this relatively stable state? Or would he become unpredictable, losing control or possibly becoming dangerous?

  I held out a hand to stop him from barging through the living room. “Wait.” I stood and listened. “Something’s not right.”

  “Camille? Jane?” I called louder this time at the bottom of the stairs. “You up there?”

  “Check the cellar,” I said, pointing to a narrow wooden door in the corner. “Maybe they’re still down there and can’t hear us.”

  Beckett flung open the door and yelled. “Jane? It’s Beckett. The storm’s over.”

  The house remained quiet, except for a faint thumping sound coming from upstairs.

  Was it a loose shutter? A door swinging open and shut?

  Could they have left already, or taken a ride from a rescue team? Had the baby become sick and needed a doctor’s attention? There were a thousand possibilities, none of which I liked.

  “Come on. We’ve got to search the place.” I handed him my flashlight. “Check the cellar. I’ll look up here.”

  I examined the first floor and found no one, then flew two steps at a time to the second story, starting with the tidy master bedroom that I assumed was Albert’s. Bed made. Nobody home.

  In the second bedroom, I found the same scenario, except it was messier than Albert’s and had young woman’s clothes flung over chair backs and on the bed. Definitely Jane’s room.

  The thumping came again, louder now, but it seemed to be higher still, coming from overhead. The attic?

  I quickly searched the nursery and bathroom, finding no one.

  At the end of the hall, I located the attic door. Flicking on the wall switch, I hurried up the narrow stairway, calling for Camille and Jane.

  “Hello?”

  At the top, I stopped and surveyed the dimly lit space, listening hard. “Camille? Honey? You up here?”

  There it was. The knocking came again, and it seemed to originate from the far end of the attic near the window.

  I passed between old beds and bureaus, sheet-covered couches and chairs, and dozens of wooden trunks.

  “Camille?”

  A muffled cry came from a large blue sea chest, followed by more thumping.

  I unlatched the lid and flung it open. My dear wife lay trussed and gagged at the bottom of the trunk. “Camille.” I let out an agonized groan. “Oh my God.” I reached in and untied the gag, and then lifted her out and laid her carefully on the floor, working on the knots to untie her wrists and ankles. “Oh, baby. Who did this to you?”

  She gasped for air, greedily drinking in the oxygen. “Couldn’t breathe,” she hissed. “Thought I was a goner.”

  I pulled her to me and held her tight, murmuring words of comfort. “My sweet girl. Oh, babe. I love you so much.”

  She mumbled against my shirt.

  “What, hon?”

  “Jane.” She pointed with a trembling finger to the trunk beside hers. “I think she’s in that one. But Marla knocked her out because she wouldn’t stop screaming.”

  My heart thudded to a stop.

  Marla?

  Releasing Camille, I fumbled with the latch on the trunk and finally opened the lid. There she lay, crumpled in a fetal position on top of a pile of mothball smelling tablecloths.

  “Jane?”

  She breathed shallowly and her too-white skin was covered in perspiration. I wondered if she was going into shock.

  “Gus?” Beckett thundered up the attic steps. “Couldn’t find them,” he shouted.

  “Over here.”

  I lifted Jane gently out of the trunk. She moaned when I placed her in Beckett’s outstretched arms. It was then I noticed the huge purple lump on her forehead. “Careful. She’s hurt.”

  Beckett dropped to a sheet-covered chair, crooning over Jane and rocking her in his arms. “She’s not coming around, Gus.”

  Fear drilled up my spine, not just because of Jane’s condition, but because of something much worse. I began to nervously scan the area, frantically lifting lids and opening boxes.

  “Oh my God. Where’s the baby?”

  Chapter 30

  “Marla took the baby.” Camille rubbed her wrists, wincing. “About an hour ago, I think.”

  I checked my watch, heart thudding. It was eight-thirty. She could have gone a long way in an hour, depending on what obstacles she encountered due to the hurricane. “Come on. We’re calling the police.”

  “Mother stole my son?” Beckett’s face went white.

  Camille nodded. “She did. I’m sorry, Beckett.”

  I knew she was sorry for more than Beckett’s missing boy. She was sorry that this young man had been dealing with a closet-crazy lady for possibly his whole life, sorry that he’d had to live with such insanity, sorry he never knew his baby boy, and that he’d been kept away from his first love, Jane.

  “I haven’t even met him yet,” he mumbled. He picked up Jane, struggled for a moment, and then caught his balance. “Let’s go.”

  We made our way downstairs. Beckett gently placed Jane on the couch and ran a wet washcloth over her face and arms. “She’s still not coming around.” He turned worried eyes to me.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll get help. Let’s see if the landline works.”

 
Camille found an old-fashioned rotary dial phone in the kitchen. “Got it,” she said. She raised the receiver to her ear and frowned. “Oh, no.”

  “Line’s dead?” I said.

  She replaced the receiver. “Yeah.” One hand fluttered to her forehead. She wobbled and leaned on the wall. “Whoa.”

  “Here. Sit.” I helped her to a chair in the living room. “You thirsty?”

  She nodded, closing her eyes. “Parched. The gag, it…”

  I didn’t wait for more explanation, but found some bottled water in the pantry off the kitchen and brought four bottles out to the living room along with a bunch of ripe bananas I found on top of the fridge. Camille quickly chugged the whole bottle and began to eat the banana.

  “Better?” I swiped a stray lock of hair from her smudged face.

  “Better,” she said.

  The color came back into her cheeks.

  “Beckett, eat this.”

  He waved me away, but I pushed him. “Listen. You’ve been locked up and I suspect—drugged—for far too long. You’ll need your strength to help Jane and Mason.”

  For a moment, he looked so vulnerable, like a child whose mother had betrayed him. Which, of course, is exactly what had happened.

  “My mother, she…”

  “She gave you meds that made you sick, didn’t she?”

  He gulped down the banana and drank some water. “I tried to tell everyone. Nobody believed me. Not even my father. She always gave me the stuff when nobody was around.”

  I wanted to ask him why, to understand the horrible behavior, but now wasn’t the time. “I believe you.” I stood and helped Camille up. “But now we’ve got to get to the police. Marla could be all the way to Boston by now with your son.”

  We hurried outside, and I thanked God that the dune buggy had a rear seat. My car was still at the Waterfords’ along with Albert’s vehicle that he shared with Jane. The only other possible means of getting to the village was to bicycle or walk, and we certainly didn’t have time for that.

  “Is the hospital in the same direction as the police station?” I asked Beckett.

  Buckling Jane in beside him and laying her head on his lap, he grimaced. “Hell, no. It’s in the opposite direction. Cape Cod Hospital is in Hyannis. Heading back toward the mainland. Police station’s on Route 124, off Route 6A near the Brewster village.”

  My mind whirled. No way could we waste precious minutes driving Jane to the ER, fighting our way through the flooding and debris, and then turn around to get to a police station to begin the statewide search for Mason. If they put up roadblocks now they might catch Marla before she got to the mainland. Minutes counted. And we hadn’t even started an Amber Alert yet.

  I slid my phone out, just to check.

  Crud. No signal.

  I put the phone away. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to ask Finn McGraw for help. He’s Jack’s brother-in-law, and Jack said he’d help us if we needed it. If his phone’s out, too, we’ll beg a ride for you and Jane to the hospital.”

  Beckett nodded. “But I want to help find my son.”

  Camille turned around to face him. “Of course you do, honey. But right now Jane needs your help. You can’t be in two places at once. Gus and I will find Mason, I promise.”

  I silently said a prayer, hoping she was right.

  I used the beach trail again, since I suspected the roads would be much worse than when I’d originally gone to the Waterfords’ place before the storm had peaked. We arrived at The Seacrest in minutes, and when I pulled up to the front porch, I saw a man on a stepladder unscrewing a sheet of plywood from a window.

  He glanced curiously at us, and then hurried down the ladder when I motioned to him.

  “Hi, I’m Gus LeGarde.” I met him half way. “Are you Finn McGraw?”

  He trotted toward us. “Yes, I’m Finn.” He extended a hand.

  I explained quickly, introduced Camille and Beckett, and told him what we needed. “Jack said I could count on you. Will you help?”

  “You’re LeGarde?”

  “I am.”

  He continued. “Jack and Scout told me about you.”

  “They’re good people.”

  “Wait.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Are you saying Marla Waterford kidnapped her grandson?”

  “I know, it sounds nuts. But she sort of, um, snapped.”

  It didn’t take long for him to get the picture. “Okay, listen. The girls are all inside. Let me grab my keys and fill them in. I’ll get this little lady and Beckett up to Hyannis, and you either find a working phone or go right up to the police station in the village.”

  I thanked him.

  He turned and ran toward the mansion.

  “Beckett?” I leaned over the side of the buggy and placed a hand on his arm. “Have you got this?”

  “Yes.” He got out and stood ready to transfer Jane to Finn’s car.

  I saw an SUV in the opened garage and sure enough, in a few minutes, Finn brought it up beside the buggy. We transferred Jane to the back seat, and Beckett climbed in beside her.

  “Thank you,” I said, gripping Finn’s hand.

  “Of course.” He gave me directions to the police station. “It’s easy. Just head up to Route 6A, take a left toward the village, and turn right on Route 124. You can’t miss it.”

  Chapter 31

  I’ve come to depend way too much on my GPS and Siri. Thankfully the directions Finn gave me were easy enough to follow.

  What wasn’t so easy was maneuvering through the flooded streets, fire trucks, rescue crews, people in canoes and kayaks, and the occasional stranded minivan that lay nose-deep in gutter water.

  By the time we spotted the green and white sign for the Brewster police facility, I’d already had to drive up on people’s lawns (sorry, but not really) and blast my way through deep streams of water. The little buggy was a tough vehicle, designed for rough terrain and set up with a high undercarriage, and for that, I was grateful.

  The police parking lot was jammed with cars and people. A double line streamed out the front door and halfway down the lot.

  Camille and I exchanged a worried glance.

  “No way,” she muttered.

  “Doesn’t look too good, babe.”

  We sat for a minute and watched a never-ending procession of cars swarm into the parking area behind us.

  “Look at them all,” she said.

  “I know, right? This isn’t going to work,” I said. “And if we don’t move, we’ll get trapped here.”

  “Let’s go,” Camille tapped the dashboard. “We’ll try to find a pay phone. Maybe we can get through that way.”

  Yet again, I had to veer up onto the beautiful lawn of the police facility to avoid the triple line of traffic now trying to jam into the parking area. Once out, we began to scout for a phone along Main Street.

  There aren’t many pay phones left in the modern world, let me tell you that.

  We finally found one at a gas station that was actually working. Miraculously, Camille found some quarters in her purse. When 911 didn’t work, I tried dialing “O” for operator, like we used to do. No answer. Then 411 for information. Busy, busy, busy. I wanted to try the local station number. I even tried to get information for the FBI phone number. But since our phones weren’t working, and some nice citizen had ripped out the old phone book from the chain in the booth, we were out of luck. I doubted if the FBI was actually “listed” anyway. After ten minutes of busy signals, we gave up.

  “Gus?” Camille said, leaning against the building. “Where do you really think she’d take the baby?”

  I slammed the receiver back on its hook. “Hell, I’ve got no idea.”

  “Listen. I’ve been thinking about this.” She took both of my hands in hers and met my eyes. “What makes you think she didn’t go back to her own house?”

  “Well, I—” Stunned, I stood silently for a minute.

  I’d instantly assumed
that if she kidnapped a child, she’d need to disappear. She’d run. She’d hide. And her own home certainly wouldn’t give her anonymity.

  “She doesn’t know you guys escaped from the cellar, right?” Camille continued.

  “Right,” I said, warming up to her theory.

  “And she might want to be in her ‘safe place’. Her home. Her kitchen.”

  “Her dungeon?” I flashed a sardonic smile.

  “Well, maybe. Since you said all that treasure’s down there. She’s probably coveted it for years. She might not want to leave it.”

  “But wouldn’t she expect you to report the abduction to the police?”

  “Who knows?” She shook her head. “She wasn’t exactly acting rational, dear.” Camille let out a long sigh. “You should have seen her eyes.”

  “I knew I married you for a good reason.” I drew her close and kissed her lips gently. “You’re the brains in this operation.”

  She laughed and kissed me back again. “Come on. There’s only one way to find out if I’m right.”

  “Okay. And I’ve got an idea on how we might get back faster. Driving on the roads took forever.”

  From Route 124, I cut over to Breakwater Road, which led to Breakwater Beach, one of the seven beaches in Brewster, and maneuvered down to the sand where all I had to circumnavigate were flip-flopped boats and the occasional random piece of lawn furniture. We made it to the Waterfords’ mansion in fifteen minutes.

  “Don’t park where she can see us,” Camille whispered. “How about over there, behind the garage?”

  I coasted to a stop and turned off the engine. Inside the garage I found a Lincoln town car, its hood still warm to the touch. I flashed a smile at my wife, grabbing her hands. “You were right. This has to be her car.”

  I wasn’t sure what had happened to the revolver Jack brought from The Seacrest. Had we left it there? Did Jack take it with him to the hospital? Regardless, once again, I was without a weapon. But if, for some reason, Marla was obsessed with the baby, and possibly hadn’t even noticed that we’d escaped yet, maybe she wouldn’t be waiting for us with a rifle pointed at our chests. No way could I stand the idea of us both getting locked up again.