Murder With Puffins

by Donna Andrews

  Michael headed for the coffeepot while I strode over to the counter where the storekeeper stood.

  “Where do I find the constable?” I asked him.

  “You’re looking at him,” he said. “Jeb Barnes. What can I do for you?”

  “I’d like to report an assault,” I said.

  CHAPTER 7

  I Fought the Puffin and the Puffin Won

  At the word assault, Jeb Barnes’s jaw dropped, and the desultory conversation around the stove stopped cold. I could almost hear their ears turning in our direction. Jeb glanced nervously at Michael. He’d jumped to a very wrong conclusion, obviously; but at least I’d gotten his attention.

  “Some lunatic fired a gun at us,” I went on. “I realize you probably can’t do anything until the storm passes and the ferry’s running, but I’d like to make a report now so you can contact the mainland police as soon as possible.”

  “Fired a gun at you?” Jeb repeated. “Where?”

  “We were trying to follow the public path around Puffin Point,” I said.

  The constable closed his eyes and sighed. Michael handed me a steaming cup of coffee and put some money down on the counter.

  “Resnick again,” said one of the locals by the stove.

  “Crazy bastard,” said another.

  “Going to kill someone one of these days,” said a third.

  “He’s done this before?” I asked. “And you haven’t done anything?”

  “We’ve formally warned him he has no right to block the path,” Jeb Barnes said defensively. “And we’re looking into the possibility of a lawsuit about that pile of junk he calls a house. We can’t do anything about the alleged shooting incidents. No one who lives here wants to tick him off any more, and none of the damn fool tourists want to stay around to testify, so we haven’t found anyone willing to press charges.”

  “Well, I will,” I said. “I’m self-employed, so I can arrange my schedule to be here for the trial. And I’m sure Aunt Phoebe will let me use the cottage when I come back.”

  The constable sighed again. Here I was, offering to press charges against his biggest local scofflaw, and he wasn’t acting the least bit grateful.

  “You’re Phoebe Hollingworth’s niece?” he asked finally.

  “Meg Langslow,” I said, holding out my hand. Jeb Barnes shook it with obvious reluctance.

  “One of them Hollingworths,” I heard one of the locals mutter. “They’ll take him on.”

  I was glad to see Mother’s family name was still a force to be reckoned with here on Monhegan.

  “Yeah, they’re all crazy enough,” agreed another local.

  Well, I couldn’t exactly argue with him. I heard Michael make a noise that sounded like a cough but had no doubt started out life as a chuckle. I decided to bring him onstage. Why should I have all the fun?

  “And this is Michael Waterston, a family friend. I’m sure Professor Waterston will also want to press charges.”

  “Naturally,” Michael said. “What a pity I haven’t been admitted to the bar in Maine.”

  I had to hand it to Michael: he carried that off beautifully. Jeb Barnes turned pale.

  “What about that cousin of yours in Bangor?” I said, picking up on the improvisation.

  “He doesn’t practice anymore,” Michael said.

  “Oh, I like that,” I said. “Elect the guy to the legislature and suddenly he’s too good to represent us common people.”

  “He has to avoid conflict of interest,” Michael said. “But as soon as the phones are working again, I’ll give him a call; I’m sure he knows someone who can help.”

  “You’ve got a cousin in the legislature?” asked one of the locals.

  “A very distant cousin,” Michael said.

  Our joke had backfired, big-time. We spent the next half hour listening to a point-by-point analysis of a bill pending before the state legislature that Monheganites considered the last hope of preserving their lobster industry. By the end of the discussion, I still didn’t understand the issue, but I had grasped that if anyone asked me where I stood on the lobster bill, I should express enthusiastic support for the town proposal and apologize for not being a registered Maine voter. Either that or turn tail and run the minute they brought up the subject.

  We finally escaped, after Michael had promised to fill his cousin in on the details of the Monhegan bill. I had to admire the way he’d changed the conversation every time anyone tried to ask which legislator his cousin was. It wasn’t as if we could make a name up; Maine had fewer than two hundred legislators, and the townspeople knew exactly how every one of them felt about their bill.

  “And another thing,” Jeb Barnes called out, following us out onto the front porch of the store. “Don’t you listen to that Resnick fellow. He’s got investments in foreign lobstering interests. Been spending a lot of money trying to kill our bill.”

  “Considering that he takes potshots at us whenever we get near him, it’s not very likely we’ll discuss it, now is it?” I said. “Don’t forget to file my complaint with the mainland police if the phones come back up.”

  As I suspected, this sent Jeb scurrying back into the store.

  “Everyone’s quite impassioned about this lobster thing,” Michael remarked.

  “Well, it is the main local industry,” I said.

  “I thought that was tourism.”

  “Okay, the other main local industry. And no one’s going to get all worked up about anyone preying on the tourists; they’re not in short supply.”

  “But what am I supposed to do if someone corners me and asks about my cousin?”

  “We’ll ask Aunt Phoebe; she’s sure to know a legislator on the right side of the issue, and she’ll persuade him to adopt you.”

  “Speaking of your aunt Phoebe, shouldn’t we get back to the house?”

  “You want to go back to the house?” I said. “We’ll be cooped up with my family soon enough when the hurricane actually hits. Do you really want to get a head start?”

  “Well, it is warm and dry there,” Michael said, pulling up the hood of his parka.

  “It’s warm and dry in the house,” I said. “But right now I doubt if they’d let us stay inside.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “Look around you,” I said. “What do you see?”

  “Birders,” he said automatically.

  “Aside from the birders.”

  Just then, Fred Dickerman drove by at his usual breakneck speed. We leapt into some bushes by the side of the road while a flock of lady birders squawked and scattered like geese before his honking horn.

  “The natives are getting hostile?” he asked.

  “The natives are busy.” I pointed out the half a dozen locals boarding or taping their windows, trudging back from the grocery stores with bags and boxes of supplies, and frantically trying to tie down or carry indoors every object smaller than a Volkswagen.

  “With the exception of that crowd of old-timers killing time in the general store, you’re right.”

  “If we go home now, Aunt Phoebe will find half a hundred chores for us to do, most of them outdoors,” I said.

  “And those same chores won’t be waiting for us when we get back?”

  “With any luck, she’ll manage to get Dad and Rob to do quite a few of them while we’re gone.”

  “So what should we do?” Michael asked. “I’ll tell you straight out—I’m not up for another hike around the island, even if it wasn’t infested with armed lunatics.”

  “We’re going shopping,” I said. “Monhegan has a few artists’ studios and craft shops. You’re not going to go back to Yorktown without a present for your mom, are you?”

  “Now that’s a good idea,” Michael said.

  We spent the next hour inspecting the remarkable number and variety of CLOSED FOR THE SEASON signs in the windows of the island shops and studios. Some of them were genuine works of art in their own right, but I wasn’t having a lot of fun viewing
them on water-soaked, locked doors or through rain-splattered windowpanes while my feet remained firmly planted in the mud.

  At one point, we actually saw Victor Resnick stalking down the street in a disreputable mackinaw that made him look more like a scarecrow than ever. We ducked behind a building until he’d passed.

  “He doesn’t have his gun,” Michael reported, peering around the corner. “If I were the constable, I’d tackle him now.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it, though,” I said, getting up the nerve to poke my head out.

  Resnick stood in front of the general store, talking to someone—a young Asian man.

  “Who do you suppose that is?” Michael said. “Doesn’t have binoculars, so I doubt he’s a birder.”

  “Definitely not a birder,” I said. “He’s wearing a necktie underneath his raincoat.”

  “The men at the general store did say something about Resnick having ties with foreign lobstering interests,” Michael said. “Maybe he’s from some Japanese seafood conglomerate.”

  “That’s possible,” I said. “Although around here, the word foreign just means ‘not from Monhegan.’ But he definitely looks corporate.”

  Resnick’s discussion with the corporate man had grown heated. They stood nose-to-nose, both talking and gesturing furiously. Resnick’s complexion grew redder and redder, and he shook his finger in the Asian man’s face. Obviously, our visitor from the East hadn’t heard about Resnick’s readiness with firearms; he gave back as good as he got. A pity the wind, rain, and surf kept us from hearing what they said. Well, if the argument turned violent, we’d have plenty of witnesses, I realized. I could see at least three other people hiding behind nearby buildings, although I had no idea whether they wanted to avoid Resnick or eavesdrop on his conversation.

  Suddenly, Resnick whirled and began striding down the street the way he’d come—toward us.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Little Puffin Around the Corner

  “Oh my God, he’s coming this way,” I whispered. We both jerked back, but not so far that we couldn’t see what went on.

  “You can go to hell for all I care!” Resnick shouted over his shoulder.

  The Asian man opened his mouth as if to reply, then stopped, took a deep breath, and shoved his hands in the pockets of his raincoat. He stood there for a few moments, staring after Resnick, then turned on his heels and began walking in the other direction.

  About then, Michael and I scurried around the corner of the building to avoid Resnick. When we peeked out a minute or two later, both he and the Asian man with the necktie had disappeared.

  After that brief flurry of excitement, we resumed our shopping quest and finally ended up down by the ferry dock in the only gift shop still open—probably because it doubled as the island-side office for the ferries.

  We flung open the shop door, shook ourselves like large dogs, and said good morning to the shopkeeper and her one other customer. The shopkeeper was a stout sixtyish woman, sensibly dressed in boots, jeans, and several layers of sweaters. I couldn’t remember her name—probably a subconscious form of revenge, since during my last visit to Monhegan I’d tried, without success, to get her to sell my ironwork in her shop.

  The other occupant was a rather odd-looking woman in her forties, dressed in a peculiar multilayered medley of black, purple, and violet, topped with a limp lavender-trimmed straw hat. Not one of the birders, obviously; probably an artist or craftswoman.

  “My God,” Michael said, looking round. “Is the puffin the state bird here or something?”

  He had a point; the shop was a puffin lover’s paradise. Puffin posters, puffin T-shirts, puffin sweatshirts, puffin key chains, and so many stuffed toy puffins of all sizes that the place looked like Santa’s workshop on December 23.

  “We’re very proud of our puffins,” said the shopkeeper. “Maine is the only state in the union that actually has nesting puffins.”

  “Yes, so Meg’s aunt Phoebe has told us,” Michael said, breaking in to stem the tide of puffin lore.

  “Oh, you’re Meg?” the shopkeeper said. “I didn’t recognize you; it’s such a long time since you’ve been here. Your father’s told us about all your detective adventures this summer.”

  I winced. I should have known that my mystery-buff dad couldn’t spend five minutes anywhere without bragging about his daughter, who had actually solved a real live murder. Listening to Dad, you’d think any minute I’d quit my career as a smith and open up a detective agency.

  “You know, we never did finish those arrangements for selling some of your ironwork here in the shop,” the woman went on.

  I snapped to attention. A more accurate statement would be that I’d never convinced her my occasional summers on the island constituted enough of a local tie to warrant my inclusion in the “Crafts of Monhegan” section of the shop. But if my past summer’s adventures had made me notorious enough to interest her, thus opening up a profitable new market—well, I wasn’t about to let the opportunity go to waste.

  In minutes, the shopkeeper and I were deep in discussions of the quantity and type of merchandise she thought she could use and whether she would buy them outright or take them on consignment. Michael wandered off to inspect the puffin paraphernalia, and after a few minutes, the woman in lavender picked up her purse.

  “Bye, Mamie,” she whispered, and slipped out of the store.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to drive a customer away.”

  “Oh, she’s not a customer,” Mamie said. “That’s one of our other island celebrities. That’s Rhapsody.” From the tone of voice, I suspected Rhapsody was one of those people who strenuously resisted admitting that they owned a last name. And that she was somebody I ought to have heard of.

  “Rhapsody?” I said.

  “You know, she does the children’s books. They call her the ‘Puffin Lady of Monhegan.’”

  “Oh, the Happy Puffin Family,” I said.

  “That’s right,” she said, beaming.

  I hadn’t actually heard of the Happy Puffin Family before, but though my detective skills are overrated, they were sufficient to let me spot the giant display of Happy Puffin Family books right beside the cash register.

  “I keep meaning to read one of her books,” I said. “I’m sure my sister, Pam, has some around the house for her kids, but I never find the time when I’m home.”

  “Oh, they’re wonderful!” Mamie exclaimed.

  While Michael continued to inspect puffin tea towels and puffin ashtrays with a suspiciously serious look on his face, I poked through the display rack. Evidently, the Puffin Lady was reasonably prolific; the shopkeeper had at least a dozen titles displayed.

  Even as a child, I had what Dad called a “deplorably literal streak.” When presented with a book that was part of a series—The Borrowers, for example, or Little House on the Prairie—I would insist on beginning with the first in the series and working my way through in order. I therefore examined the copyright dates and passed up Puffin in the Rye (“The Happy Puffin Family Visits a Farm!”) The Daring Young Puffin on the Flying Trapeze! (“The Happy Puffin Family Visits the Circus!”), and Snow Falling on Puffins (“The Happy Puffin Family Goes Sledding!”) in favor of the original volume, Hark the Herald Puffins Sing (“Christmas with the Happy Puffin Family!”).

  I hoped the Puffin Lady’s artistic and literary skills had improved over time. I wasn’t much impressed with either in her first opus. The puffins looked vaguely inauthentic—either she didn’t draw all that well or perhaps she had taken liberties with their anatomy to make them more anthropomorphic. Or perhaps it was the props and costumes. She liked decking the poor birds out in brightly colored bits of human clothing, or having them carry things like yo-yos and lollipops. They were colorful and eye-catching. But she hadn’t succeeded in making them all that appealing, as far as I could see; in fact, they looked faintly reptilian. I saw more charm in one mass-produced plush stuffed puffin from the gift shop
than in Rhapsody’s whole book.

  It was the beaks and the eyes. The puffins’ beaks might be picturesque and unusual, but they weren’t designed for expressing human emotion. Whatever charm the Puffin Lady had tried to create with cute little props and costumes, she hadn’t managed to make those huge cartoonlike beaks look any different. Happy, sad, angry, or surprised, the puffins all had the same lack of expression. And the eyes—maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always found birds’ eyes a little cold and alien. You get the feeling they’re off thinking strange, fluttery little splinter thoughts; and you hope it’s all about seeds and nuts and where to find a birdbath, and not something like acting out in real life their great-great-grandfathers’ starring roles in The Birds. Maybe I’d done her artistic skills an injustice. Rhapsody had captured everything I disliked about birds’ eyes so accurately that a chill went down my spine.

  “You’re not really thinking of buying that,” came a voice, interrupting my thoughts.

  I looked up, to see one of the birders, a matronly woman who had both the inevitable binoculars and a pair of reading glasses dangling over her ample bosom, not to mention a camera hanging by a strap from her wrist. I wasn’t sure, but I thought she might be one of the birders who’d snapped pictures of the lunatic shooting at us, so I resolved to be as polite as possible.

  “Just trying to see what the fuss is all about,” I said. “She seems such a local celebrity.”

  “I can’t for the life of me see why,” the birder said. “It’s not as if she’s particularly good at it.”

  Actually, I agreed, but the birder’s bullying manner irritated me, so I said only, “Oh, really? How so?”

  “Her stuff’s shockingly inaccurate,” the birder said with a sniff. “Shoddy research all around. Worse than useless from a scientific point of view.”

  I looked back at the brightly colored page, where the Happy Puffin Family was sitting down to Christmas dinner. The little Puffins, complete with napkins tied bib-fashion around their necks, looked eagerly toward their mother—you could tell her by the flowered hat. Mama Puffin stood beside the table, holding a giant covered dish with the tips of her wings. I flipped the page. The dish now rested in front of Papa Puffin, who was about to wield a carving knife on its contents—not turkey, thank goodness, but an enormous smiling fish. The small Puffins jumped up and down in their seats, and even the main course looked implausibly cheerful, as if they hadn’t quite gotten around to telling him exactly what role he was to play in the upcoming feast.