Murder With Puffins

by Donna Andrews

  “Damn fool thing to have happen,” Aunt Phoebe said, plopping a generous dollop of homemade jam on her toast. “Slipped on the path up above the Dickermans’ and fell into a gully. Took me forever to crawl out.”

  “Why didn’t you call for help?”

  “I did, but who can hear a thing in all this wind? Finally got myself back on the path, then had to half-crawl home. Lost my walking stick.”

  “Well, why didn’t you stop and ask for help at the Dickermans’?” I asked. “Or those people next door, whoever they are?”

  “Didn’t want to impose on strangers,” she said. “My own damn fault, falling in that gully; didn’t want to cause them any bother.”

  “‘The Dickermans are hardly strangers,” I said in exasperation. “You’ve only known them thirty or forty years.”

  “Now, Meg,” Mother said.

  “What were you doing gallivanting up that way anyway?” I asked. “The last time we saw you, you were running up to Victor Resnick’s to give him a piece of your mind.”

  Everyone else in the room froze and looked anxiously back and forth between me and Aunt Phoebe. She paused in the middle of helping herself to another pint of potato salad and cackled.

  “I gave him a bit more than a piece of my mind,” she said. “Scoundrel had the nerve to wave that blunderbuss of his in my face. Had to take it away from him.”

  “You did what?” Rob said.

  “Oh lord,” Michael muttered.

  “Took away that fool gun of his,” Aunt Phoebe said through a mouthful of potato salad. “Threw it off the cliff.”

  “I’m not sure she should say any more,” Rob said.

  “Cool it, Rob,” I said. “Now’s not the time to play lawyer.”

  “I’m not playing; she may need a lawyer.”

  “Why, has that fool complained about me?” Aunt Phoebe said. “That rap on the noggin I gave him when he tried to take the gun back is nothing. Look at this bruise where he grabbed my arm! And this cut here—I got this when he tripped me.”

  “Self-defense,” Rob said. “She has a very good case for self-defense.”

  “Aunt Phoebe,” I said, “exactly what happened when you went up to Resnick’s house?”

  “Why, what does he say happened?” she asked.

  “Just tell us.”

  Aunt Phoebe thought for a moment.

  “All right,” she said. “I walked up and knocked on his door a couple of times, and nobody answered. I was about to leave when he came charging around the corner of the house, waving his gun. Wasn’t aiming it at me, but the way he was waving it around, who knows what could have happened. So I grabbed it, and we played tug-of-war for a bit, until he lost his grip. He tried to twist my arm to make me give it back, so I whacked him sharply on the noggin, and he let go, and I ejected all the shells and threw the thing off the cliff. After that, he yelled for a while, and I yelled back, and then he stomped back into his house and tried to slam the door.”

  She shrugged and bit into a large ham and cheese sandwich.

  “And that was the last you saw of him?” I asked.

  She nodded as she chewed and swallowed, then chuckled.

  “Fool hadn’t put up a single board or a scrap of tape, as far as I could see when I was up there. Wonder if he’s still up there trying to ride the storm out in that fishbowl.”

  “No,” I said. “Actually, he’s down in the meat locker of the Anchor Inn.”

  Aunt Phoebe stopped chewing.

  “What’s he doing there?” she asked through a mouthful of sandwich.

  “Waiting to be autopsied,” I said. “Michael and I found him floating facedown in a tidal pool earlier today.”

  Aunt Phoebe swallowed hard and then coughed a few times.

  “Are you saying he’s dead?” she asked when she could finally speak.

  “That’s generally a prerequisite for autopsying someone.”

  “Good Lord! You think that rap on the head killed him?”

  “We won’t know what killed him until the autopsy,” I said.

  “He was fine when I left him,” Aunt Phoebe said. “Just as loud and obnoxious as ever.”

  “Maybe he had a delayed reaction,” I said. “Or maybe you had nothing to do with it. Was he bleeding very badly when you left him?”

  “Didn’t see that he was bleeding at all,” she said. “I didn’t smash his skull in, just rapped him sharplike to let him know I wasn’t going to stand for him trying to lay hands on me.”

  “Rapped him with what?” Michael said.

  “My walking stick, of course.”

  “Well, they can examine the walking stick and compare that to the wound,” Michael said. “Maybe someone else hit him later. It’s not as if the guy didn’t have other enemies.”

  “If I still had the stick,” Aunt Phoebe said. “I told you—I lost it.”

  “In the gully?” I asked. “We could go look for it in the gully.”

  “No, somewhere between Resnick’s house and the gully,” she said.

  “That only covers half the island,” I said. “I don’t suppose you could widen the search area a little?”

  “I wasn’t thinking about my stick,” she said. “I was hopping mad, and I took the long way around to blow off steam. I know I’d lost my stick by the time I got to the gully, because I remember thinking I wouldn’t have fallen in if I’d had it. Careless damn fool thing to do.”

  Or incredibly clever, if the walking stick was the murder weapon. She had only to toss it off the cliff and no one would ever see it again. Except that I couldn’t quite picture Aunt Phoebe as a murderer.

  We were all silent for a few minutes.

  “There’s no way they could prove first-degree murder,” Rob said, finally.

  “Not now, Rob,” I said.

  “I mean, manslaughter’s probably the most they could even hope to—”

  “Shut up, Rob!”

  “You didn’t see James on your way home, did you?” Mother asked.

  “Haven’t seen him since he took off for Green Point to watch the hurricane hit the island,” Aunt Phoebe said. “Have you looked there?”

  “Yes, that’s how we came to find Resnick’s body,” I said.

  “I’ m sure something has happened to him,” Mother said.

  “He’ll be fine, Mother,” I said. “He’ll turn up in the morning, full of enthusiasm about what an exciting adventure he’s had.”

  I tried to sound as if I really believed it. I wasn’t sure I’d fooled anyone. Probably not, since Michael chose that moment to take my hand and give it a reassuring squeeze. Aunt Phoebe had fallen very silent, and, worse yet, she’d stopped eating. Definitely a bad sign.

  “Well, I’d better get myself off to bed,” Aunt Phoebe said, startling us by thumping the floor with her makeshift walking stick—a flagpole we’d dragged in from the porch—as she struggled to her feet. “I want to look my best when I turn myself in tomorrow.”

  “Oh, Phoebe, no!” Mother cried.

  “No help for it,” Aunt Phoebe said. “I can’t keep quiet any longer and run the risk that someone innocent will suffer for my crime.”

  “Ought to give you a medal, considering who you bumped off,” Mrs. Fenniman remarked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Aunt Phoebe said, striking a noble pose. “I must pay the consequences of my actions.”

  “Ingrid Bergman,” I said.

  Everyone looked at me as if I were crazy. Except for Michael.

  “In Joan of Arc?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “I can see that,” he said. “Although actually I thought more of a Katharine Hepburn.”

  “In what movie?” I asked.

  “I hadn’t quite figured out yet. It’ll come to me.”

  “Sylvia Scarlett, maybe,” I said. “Or, better yet, Mary of Scotland.”

  “Oh, that’s the ticket. Definitely Mary of Scotland.”

  “You’re both crazy,” Mrs. Fenniman announced. “Rob, come
help your aunt and your mother with the stairs; they both need their rest.”

  Michael leapt up to help as well, and after they’d hauled Aunt Phoebe and Mother upstairs, everyone drifted off to bed. Just as well. I was exhausted, too. I retrieved the folders I’d left by the umbrella stand, but then I stuffed them in my suitcase to look at in the morning and took myself to bed. I wasn’t sure I could manage dawn, but I knew I’d have to get up pretty early to resume the hunt for Dad. And I wanted to tag along when Aunt Phoebe turned herself in. I didn’t for a minute believe she’d murdered Resnick. I couldn’t exactly say why, but her story sounded phony to me. Maybe I’d figure out why in the morning, after a good night’s sleep.

  Of course, a good night’s sleep was exactly what I didn’t get. The first couple of times I woke up, the storm had definitely gotten worse, as if the cottage were in a wind tunnel, with a herd of elephants pounding on the walls and tap-dancing on the roof. And Michael either had the world’s worst case of insomnia or thought he could avert some danger by patrolling the cottage half the night, checking doors and peering out of windows. After about 2:00 or 3:00 A.M., either the hurricane started moving again or I got used to the noise, and I finally got a few hours of sleep.

  Mother woke me up at dawn.

  “Time to get up and start looking for your father again,” she said, leaning over me.

  Spike, sleeping on my chest again, growled at her. For once, I agreed with him.

  “I don’t dare get up till he does,” I said, and closed my eyes again.

  A few minutes later, I heard the refrigerator door opening and closing several times, followed by pots and pans rattling, and then the crinkling noise of a cellophane wrapper.

  Spike lifted his head.

  Mother appeared in the doorway, massaging a half-empty potato chip bag.

  Spike jumped off my chest and ran over to her, wagging his tail. He followed her back into the kitchen and then out again. She no longer held the potato chip bag, and from the look on Spike’s face, I doubted he’d gotten any of the contents.

  “You could at least feed him, if you’re going to torture him like that.”

  “I’ll feed him after you’re gone,” she said.

  “Don’t leave without me,” came Aunt Phoebe’s voice from above. She stumped down the stairs with her flagpole. Michael and Rob, both half-dressed, trailed after her, trying to help and being firmly shooed away.

  “I’m going down to see the constable now,” she announced when she reached the ground floor.

  “It’s only six A.M.; does the store open this early?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t matter; Jeb Barnes lives behind it,” she said. “I don’t want to put it off any longer.”

  “And what about the hurricane?” I asked.

  “Moving out to sea,” Mrs. Fenniman said. “We’re just seeing the tail end of it now.”

  She could be right, I thought; I hadn’t actually heard the wind slam anything into the side of the house for the whole ten or fifteen minutes I’d been awake. Probably a good sign.

  “I can’t let a little rain stop me,” Aunt Phoebe said.

  “I think you should have a good last meal first,” Mrs. Fenniman announced, knocking over a clump of pink plastic flamingos on her way to the kitchen.

  “No, I can’t think of food right now,” Aunt Phoebe said. “I just want to look around one last time. Who knows when I’ll see my own hearth again?”

  I wasn’t sure she could see the hearth now, considering the amount of junk in the room, but I suppose she was speaking metaphorically.

  “Hang on a minute while I throw some clothes on,” I growled. “I won’t let you go into the lion’s den alone.”

  I suppose that struck the right melodramatic note; at any rate, she waited, tapping her foot, until I had dressed, gulped down a few ounces of coffee, and grabbed my knapsack. Then she, Michael, and I set off for the village.

  Of course, we had to clear quite a bit of debris off the deck before we could escape the house. Leaves, twigs, branches, limbs, and even whole trees were strewn about everywhere, and the number of smashed lobster pots littering the landscape made me worry about how the fishermen would manage next season.

  “What a morning,” I grumbled as we preceded Aunt Phoebe down the path, moving the worst of the debris out of the way as we went.

  “Oh, come on; think what an interesting adventure we’re having,” Michael said.

  “Are you usually this cheerful in the morning?” I asked.

  “Why? Is cheerful in the morning a good or a bad thing, in your opinion?”

  “Cheerful’s fine, as long as it’s quietly cheerful until I’m completely awake.”

  “I’m not awake at all myself,” Michael said. “Never am before ten. I’m only this cheerful because I’m sleepwalking.”

  “That’s much better. Sleepwalking I can understand.”

  “Come on, you two!” Aunt Phoebe called out. “Look sharp up there! Can’t keep the law waiting!”

  “In a hurry to hang herself, isn’t she?” Michael said.

  “Do you mean that literally?” I asked. “I mean, does Maine actually have capital punishment?”

  “Guess we’ll find out,” Michael said.

  The worst of the storm appeared past, but Hurricane Gladys couldn’t have gotten all that far away. It was still raining and blowing heavily, and we had trouble keeping upright. Aunt Phoebe let us help her over the rough spots until we got to the door of the general store. She insisted on walking up the steps and into the store on her own, with the help of the flagpole. Michael opened the door and Aunt Phoebe limped dramatically into the store.

  Jeb Barnes already stood behind his counter, despite the early hour, and the usual collection of locals had already gathered around the stove, listening to a battery radio. Or perhaps they’d never gone home last night. Mayor Mamie sat among them, sipping a cup of coffee.

  “I’ve come to turn myself in,” Aunt Phoebe announced in ringing tones. “I killed Victor Resnick.”

  CHAPTER 17

  The Return of the Prodigal Puffin

  When the commotion died down, Aunt Phoebe described her confrontation with Victor Resnick with a great deal of gusto. Perhaps she had been too tired to go into much detail the night before, or perhaps she found the gang at the general store a more congenial audience. At any rate, she produced a great many more details than she had the first time around. The bit at the end, where she left Resnick lying senseless in the middle of his yard with the hurricane howling around him, was particularly effective. By the time she got to that part of her story, everyone in the general store was speechless with amazement. I was surprised no one applauded. Back home, my family would have.

  “Well, I guess that about wraps it up,” Jeb Barnes said, when he finally found his voice.

  “So you might as well arrest me now,” Aunt Phoebe said.

  The constable frowned. I suspected he was wondering what to do. I doubted the island had a jail.

  “Why don’t you have her go back to the cottage and consider herself under house arrest?” I said. “It’s not as if she can go anywhere before the ferry starts running.”

  “Just what I was thinking,” Jeb Barnes said. “Consider yourself under house arrest, Miss Hollingworth. Don’t leave the island.”

  “You’ll know where to find me, Constable,” Aunt Phoebe said. She turned and limped across the room, head held high. Her grand exit was a little spoiled by the blast of wind and rain that burst into the room when she opened the door, nearly knocking her over, but she recovered rapidly and slammed the door behind her.

  “What a grand old lady,” Jeb Barnes said.

  Murmurs of agreement came from the crew around the stove.

  “Yes, she is,” I said. “She’s not your murderer, of course; but she did make a grand confession. I almost believed it myself. But ever since she told us last night, something about her story’s been bothering me, and I finally figured out what’s wrong with
it.”

  “So what’s wrong with it?” Jeb said, giving me a wary look.

  “You heard what she said: They were struggling over the gun, and she rapped him on the noggin.”

  Jeb looked blank.

  “Oh, I see,” Michael said. “Allow us to demonstrate.”

  He plucked two umbrellas from a stack dripping by the front door and handed one to me with a flourish.

  “My umbrella represents Resnick’s gun, and Meg’s is her aunt’s stick,” he said.

  Jeb nodded.

  Then we pretended to grapple over the gun umbrella. Michael allowed me to wrest it away from him and then, when he tried to grab it back, I rapped him lightly on the head with the top of the walking-stick umbrella.

  The crowd around the store was entranced. To my satisfaction, scattered applause greeted the conclusion of our reenactment.

  “Notice anything?” I asked.

  “Looked pretty authentic to me,” Mamie said, sipping her coffee. “Pretty much as she described it.

  “Exactly,” I said. “So if they were struggling like that, how did she hit him on the back of the head? That’s where the wound was; in fact, it was pretty far down the back of the head. I can manage the forehead—like this.”

  I tapped Michael on the forehead. Just at the hairline, where I remembered seeing the bruise on Resnick’s face.

  “I can even manage the top of the head,” I continued, demonstrating.

  “But there’s no way I can manage the back of the head unless he turns his back to me. Her confession doesn’t hold water.”

  “Then why’d she do it?” Mamie asked. “Confess, I mean.”

  “She probably feels guilty over having hit him on the head,” I said. “She’s had all night to stew about it; by this time, she probably really believes she killed him. You know my family; by tomorrow, she’ll be convinced that she left him lying in a pool of blood with her stick stuck through his heart like a stake.”

  The nods and chuckles from the locals around the stove showed I’d hit home. I didn’t mention the other possibility: that Aunt Phoebe might be covering for someone. Mamie and Jeb looked at each other.