He looked back out at the beach. It was another beautiful Indian summer day. The tide was low and that flock of seagulls was in its usual spot. A little tow-haired toddler ran toward the birds and they took flight. The boy stood there for a moment and then started to cry. A couple holding hands about twenty feet behind him laughed and then the man jogged up to the boy and swooped him up to the sky. I could hear the child’s belly laugh through the glass door. The mother caught up to them and put her arm around her husband and the family continued its walk down the beach.
“I want that,” said Milo.
I nodded.
“I want that, and I want my mother to be there to see it, goddamn it.” Milo sighed loudly and turned back to me. A tear slipped out of my eye and rolled down my cheek. Neither my mother or my father would be there when—if—I ever had a family.
“I’m sorry, Sam.” He put his arm around my back and squeezed me into his firm abs. “Come on. Let’s eat. And then you’re going to pack up your computer and we’re going to my place. We can work there.”
I smiled. “Pepper too?”
He smiled back. “Pepper too.”
“Pull into the Plantation,” I said and Milo hit the brakes. We were in his truck heading to Duxbury. Plimoth Plantation had reopened Monday.
“Why?”
“Remember the gift shop? It has all kinds of books. I want to see what they’ve got on the early Plymouth Colony.”
“What? You don’t want to read all six hundred pages of Bradford’s history?” Milo grinned. His mood had improved once we decided to go back to his house.
“I’m thinking there might be something that will help us figure out the brand and the AD patch. Something that’s not written in funky old misspelled English.”
Milo turned left and drove down the winding driveway. On both sides, dense evergreens, flaming maples and a few yellow elms gave the impression that we were far from civilization. It was easy to believe we were now in a frontier settlement rather than just a few hundred yards from a busy highway speckled with tourist trap restaurants—until we hit the parking area.
The lot was already half full, and it was only nine thirty. On a Tuesday in October. The rubberneckers were out in force; people couldn’t wait to see where it happened. The press was in a frenzy; the Pilgrim Slayer hangings were the talk of the nation. Oscar Wilde once said “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.” It seemed Liz Smit would have to agree. Could this all be some kind of sick publicity stunt?
“What about Pepper?” Milo asked. Pepper was curled up sleeping in the back seat. We’d interrupted his morning nap when we left my house. Pepper sleeps about eighteen hours a day; I often wish that Pepper and I could trade jobs.
I glanced around the parking lot, remembering his recent escape. “Just leave the windows open a crack; he’ll be fine. We won’t be long.”
We exited the truck and made our way over the wooden stairs and into the welcome center. In the lobby, couples and families with toddlers milled about outside the theater. The old woman standing at the ticket booth looked up at us and frowned. My sweat pants and hoodie were even shabbier than Milo’s.
“Uh, we’re just going in the gift shop,” I said. “We’ll only be a few minutes.” She nodded and went back to collecting money.
“Let’s make this quick,” I whispered to Milo. We went into the shop and made a beeline for the book shelves.
“Sharon? Brian?” The click click click of high heels that followed did not bode well. Slowly, Milo and I turned around. Liz Smit was smiling broadly, although I was guessing that was probably due to the long queues in the lobby rather than a visit by two new Sight Ministries’ followers. It cost like $35 per person to get in to Plimoth Plantation.
I smiled. “Mrs. Smit, what a surprise!” My ears were in flames. “We just stopped in on a whim; we were looking for a book on the history of Plymouth.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place!” She laughed loudly; Liz Smit was giddy with all the mobs.
“So, uh, you work here then?” Smit was wearing a name badge. Way to state the obvious, Sam!
“Oh, yes, I thought you knew…but then, how would you, being new to the area and all. I’ve been the executive director here for the past two years.” She had spots of color high on her cheeks.
“How interesting that must be,” Milo said smoothly. “We can’t wait to learn more about the religious roots of the colony. Say, do you have any openings here? As you may recall, I’m still looking for work. Though, I wouldn’t come looking for a job dressed like this!” Milo chuckled. “But seriously, I’ll take anything at this point.”
Smit wrinkled her brow. “Well, now, let me think.” She began describing a part-time opening in the café, but I lost track of the conversation when I saw who was heading our way. John Clarkson. Shit!
Clarkson was decked out in full John Billington regalia. His head was down but he was walking quickly our way.
“Honey, don’t forget, we’re on a schedule.” I tugged Milo’s sleeve and smiled sweetly at Mrs. Smit. “Would it be alright if Brian came back to talk with you? I have an appointment. Really, we were just going to be in and out.”
Clarkson had stopped to talk to some kid and his parents outside the theater. “My name is John Billington,” I heard him bellow as he launched into his spiel.
Liz Smit glanced over and a bit of the smile left her eyes. Late again. She turned back to me and Milo. “Of course, of course, don’t let me keep you. Brian, call my assistant Megan and make an appointment sometime later this week. I’m sure we can find something for you here at the Plantation, especially now that it’s so busy.”
Milo thanked her and we ducked behind a wall of bookshelves, crouching down as if to study the titles on the bottom shelf. I peeked out; Smit went directly to Clarkson’s side, who was finishing up his act. I saw him reach for her elbow and guide her away from the tourists, down the hallway to the administrative offices. She leaned into one doorway and said something; a moment later Aaron Stevens emerged and followed Smit and Clarkson. I lost sight of them.
“There’s something odd there,” I said to Milo, shaking my head. “I don’t know what it is, but those three are just plain strange together. We need a fly on the wall in there.” Which reminded me: there were cheap listening devices available from the same outfit that sold me my miniature camera. Hmmm.
Milo studied my face. “Sam. Have you already forgotten what Dennis said Sunday? Bugs are his domain, not ours. Come on, let’s find some books and get outta here.”
How does he read my mind like that?
Ten minutes later we hurried back up the paved path to the parking lot. We’d chosen three overpriced books on life in the early Colony. Milo paid. Again. I needed that reward. I could sort of understand why Tommy’d been following us. But he was still a creep.
As we neared Milo’s truck I looked up and stopped. Milo bumped into me and then followed my gaze.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
“Injun Bob,” I said. He was looking in the window of Milo’s truck and poking the end of his braid through the opening. Pepper was standing up inside and batting at Bob’s hair with his paw.
We walked over and stopped in front of Injun Bob.
He looked at me, then over to Milo and then back at me. “You write your article yet?” he asked.
“I’m, uh, still doing some research,” I said. I held up the plastic bag containing our books. I was dying to ask him what he’d been doing in the research room last week, and who he’d been with, but there didn’t seem to be a good way to work that into the conversation.
“That your cat?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You know, we Native Americans have our own stories about black cats.” He waited for me to reply.
“Uh, really?”
“In our legend, the black cat is also an evil witch. A shape shifter. Just like in the white man’s stories from Europe.” He st
ared at me solemnly. “Makes you wonder a little, doesn’t it?”
I tried to laugh it off. Injun Bob didn’t smile.
“Well, Pepper’s not a witch,” I said. “Neither am I, for that matter.”
“Not too often,” said Milo with a wink. Bob still didn’t smile.
“Well,” I said, “we have to be going.”
Injun Bob pulled his skinny grey braid out of the window and nodded at us, then turned and trudged off.
Milo and I got in the truck and he backed out. As he accelerated across the parking lot, Milo said, “That was a little weird.”
“Injun Bob’s a lot weird.”
“Maybe we should look at him again.”
I nodded and stared out the window. “Maybe you’re right. But there’s no way he climbed that tree at the Mayflower Society library. But he was talking with someone here in the research room last week.” But then, I reminded myself, he worked here. “Zeke is still the link here, at least between the first two.”
I picked my phone up off the seat; I’d left it in the truck while Milo and I were in the museum store. I had several missed calls and a voice mail message. Shit. We’d sort of hoped that when we didn’t hear anything from Dennis by nine-thirty that maybe the killer had taken a night off.
As Milo turned left out onto the road, I dialed my voice mail. Before I got to my messages, the phone rang. Dennis. I closed my eyes, sighed, and answered.
“God damn you, Sam, why weren’t you answering?” Dennis was mad again. Or maybe still. Probably still.
“Sorry Dennis, I left it in the truck. We were only supposed to be gone a few minutes.”
“Scared the shit out of me,” he muttered. “This case is gonna be the end of me, I swear.”
“Is there…?”
He was quiet a second. I could hear voices in the background. “Yeah. Another one. Inside the Windemere store on Main. Fucking site of Billington’s original home. I’ve seen that plaque a million times, but we didn’t have anyone on it. Just the normal patrols on Main.”
“We’re heading that way right now. Can we stop by?”
“Sorry, Sam. Fucking reporters are swarming, the forensics guys are everywhere and it’s the middle of a business day. Kid found the body when he came in to open, just before ten. It’s a zoo here. Turk and I’ll be by after with copies of the photos.”
“Well, um, Milo and I are going to work from his place today. Can you come by in the evening? Just tell me what the message was.”
“Whatever, yeah, later. ‘For the general good of the Colony’ is the message. There was a rubber snake wrapped around her upper arm.” He paused. “Real young one, Sam. I bet she’s only twenty-one or twenty-two.”
I felt a chill. “Do you know who she is yet?”
“No, not yet. Look, I gotta go. I’ll call you later. And keep the goddamn phone with you.” He hung up.
I looked at Milo grimly. “You might want to take the highway,” I said. “Downtown’s gonna be a mess.”
Milo pulled into a driveway, backed out, and headed away from town.
Chapter 26
Milo and I walked into his kitchen behind Pepper, who ran over to Lady. Pepper likes his routines. After that he would go into the living room and watch the fish tank for a while. I always thought that seemed like an exercise in frustration, but Pepper didn’t seem to mind.
I followed Milo into the living room. Laura was lying on the couch under a quilt with a vaporizer next to her. She opened her eyes in surprise. Her head was uncovered and I could see she was embarrassed. I said, “Hi Laura,” and then joined Pepper at the fish tank.
“How’re you feeling, Mom?” Milo asked.
“No worse than yesterday.” She coughed a thick, wet sounding cough.
“You want anything? Sam and I are going to work for a while out in the sun room.”
“I thought you guys were fixing her deck?”
Shit. We hadn’t come up with an excuse for being at Milo’s house. I wondered what he’d dream up this time. I hoped I’d at least have panties on, whatever the story was.
“We’re nearly done with that,” Milo said casually. “Sam’s been researching her family tree and I got interested. Thought maybe I’d try to see how far back ours goes. I figured we could do it here and keep an eye on you at the same time. ’Til Dad gets home.”
Laura coughed again and put a handkerchief in front of her mouth. She wheezed for a few seconds and then said, “Your dad’s side goes back to the Mayflower.” Milo stood there as she coughed and wheezed some more.
He turned and went into the kitchen. “I’m going to make you some more hot tea,” he said over his shoulder.
Laura sighed and looked over at me. Her face was pale and blue-tinged shadows dulled her large eyes. “Don’t ever get sick when your kids are home,” she said and coughed. “They’re a pain in the ass.” She leaned back on the pillow and closed her eyes.
I stared at the colorful fish rounding the tank. Did they mind that their home was just one foot by two feet square? Their faces were inscrutable, mouths opening and closing to some internal metronome. Pepper was enthralled.
Milo brought a steaming mug into the living room. “I’ll just put this on the table Mom. You should drink it.”
“I will. Thanks, honey. Now let me sleep,” she said softly. “That’s all I need.”
I picked up my backpack and followed Milo out to the sun room. He closed the door behind us.
“You see?” he said.
I nodded. “Yeah, it doesn’t sound good.”
Milo put his duffel bag on a small white wicker table and withdrew his computer and the books from Plimoth Plantation. “I’m going to try and read. Not sure I can focus on anything else.” He chose a book and sank into the loveseat.
I nodded, pulled my laptop out of my backpack and plugged it into the wall. I sat in a matching white wicker chair and stared out at the harbor for a minute. Inside, Laura coughed some more. My stomach clenched.
Finally, I opened the file with my notes and jotted down the information on the latest victim.
I thought about what Dennis said, about how they didn’t have anyone on the Billington homestead site. It was a retail store now, filled with light-hearted gifts and whimsical wind chimes and knick-knacks. Right on Main Street. I’d seen the black and gold plaque identifying the brick building a million times myself. In the summer, I always got stuck in traffic right about there.
I decided that before I did any more work on the symbols, I was going to make a list for Dennis of every spot in town related to the Pilgrims, and to John Billington specifically. If nothing else, maybe I could help make sure that enough cops were posted in the right places before tomorrow night. After that I would make a list of all of Billington’s descendants who were local members of the Mayflower Society. So far, the victims hadn’t actually been members themselves, but I figured the police could at least keep an extra close eye on any young women who were descended from John Billington and lived locally.
“The best offense is a good defense,” I mumbled to myself.
“The best defense is a good offense,” said Milo.
“What?”
“You got it backwards.” He looked at me over his book. “The saying is, ‘the best defense is a good offense.”
“Yeah, well, our offense has been playing shitty,” I replied. “I’m going to put together some info that Dennis can use for defense.”
Milo nodded. “Good call,” he said and went back to his book.
I Googled “Billington Plymouth” and copied down references. There was a Billington Road over by Little Pond and the Billington Bed &Breakfast on Billington Road. There was the Billington Sea, which was one of many large ponds in Plymouth. Expensive homes and summer cottages dotted the shore of the Billington Sea. They would be empty this time of year, providing the killer with plenty of choices.
Then there were all of the major and minor Pilgrim tourist attractions. The town was full of them
. In addition to the places where there’d already been killings, there was the Pilgrim Hall Museum, the Forefather’s Monument, Plymouth Rock Park, Burial Hill and so on. I worked on the list for another half hour and then composed a text message to Dennis: “Billington Road, Billington B&B and Billington Sea—need extra patrols.” A few minutes later, he texted back. “Thx.” “Got list 4 u” I replied. This time he didn’t respond.
Milo stood and said, “I’m gonna check on Mom.” I nodded and logged into the Mayflower Society web site. A few minutes later Milo returned and sat back down. He grabbed his book. “She’s sleeping. I don’t think she has a fever.”
“That’s good,” I said. “If she’s getting worse, she’d have a fever.”
He nodded and gave me a small smile. “Thanks for coming over with me, Sam. I woulda been useless at your place.”
I looked at him with a serious face. “And that would be different how?” I asked.
He grinned at me and I felt that familiar warmth rising up from my chest toward my face. Maybe I was hitting menopause early. About twenty years early. I seemed to be getting hot flashes about ten times a day. I looked back at my computer screen and tried to figure out where I’d left off on the list of local Billington descendants. I stole another glance at Milo, but he’d gone back to reading his book.
When I finished, I had twenty-six names. Fourteen of them were men, but who knew, the killer might decide it wasn’t fair to discriminate based on sex. But, if my theory about the killer being involved with Sight Ministries had any merit at all, that wasn’t likely.
Only one of the women was younger than thirty. I put her name at the top of the list and texted Dennis again. “Got list of J.B. descendants in Plmth Cty 4 u from Mflr Soc. Jeanine Harter only woman <30. 52 Wshngtn St.” Dennis again texted back “Thx.” Such a talker.
I set my laptop down and stood. “I’m going to see what Pepper’s getting into,” I said.
“He was staring at the fish when I was in there,” Milo replied. He looked up at me. “This is pretty interesting stuff.”
Saints & Strangers (A Sam Warren Mystery) Page 15