Death in a Summer Colony

by Aaron Stander

  “All of the above,” answered Ray. “Tell me about the food.”

  “You will approve, but we will have to gobble it down. You checked the weather?”

  “It is what you see. A modest chop left over from yesterday. The wind will drop away around sunset. We should be coming back on glass. You lead, you set a faster pace than I do.”

  Hanna headed into open water and pointed her bow toward the south end of the island. Ray fell in behind, later moving just off her port side. There was little conversation, just the rhythm of body, blade, boat, and waves. Once they neared the shore of the island, they paddled north until they found a sand beach for landing.

  Ray sat on the bluff above the beach and looked across the Manitou Passage in softening light. From Sleeping Bear Point the massive dunes stretched south toward Empire, rising again and slowly leveling as they neared Platte Point. The passage was almost devoid of boat traffic, and the wave height had dropped to less than a foot.

  “How about some smoked salmon?”

  “Sounds promising.”

  “On a dark rye with cream cheese and capers.”

  “Now you are talking,” said Ray, dropping at her side and accepting the sandwich.

  “I know we should be sipping vodka, or at least white wine, but how about some seltzer with a twist of lime.”

  “Perfect.”

  They ate in silence for many minutes. Finally, Hanna said, “We take this all too much for granted. This view, this amazing water, this tranquility. I have to keep reminding myself of my good fortune in being here rather than at the edge of some killing zone.” She looked over at Ray. “How goes the investigation or are we banning all work-related conversations?”

  Ray’s answer was a long time in coming. “”It’s so complicated. Twenty or more possible suspects just in our initial review. The victim has had decades-long relationships with most of these people. It’s hard to know where to begin. I spent the day listening to different versions of the same story, most of them coming through a filter that would put the speaker in the best light. Most of the colony residents expressed a dislike for the victim. And yet they seemed to tolerate him because he had the money and competence to keep things going.”

  Ray looked out at the water and checked his watch. “We should be back on the water. I want to get across the shipping channel before dark. Let’s have the navigation lights in place and switched on before we launch.”

  Ray pushed Hanna’s kayak away from the beach, and then launched his own. As they paddled away from shore, Hanna asked, “Should we put out a radio call that we’re crossing the passage?”

  “I don’t see any traffic, but it’s probably a good thing to do.” He stopped paddling and waited as she transmitted “Sécurité, sécurité, sécurité, kayaks crossing Manitou Passage west to east from South Manitou to Sleeping Bear Point.” She repeated her message, her voice echoing through Ray’s VFR radio.

  “How was that,” she asked.

  “Perfect. We’ve made a cautionary call, the lights are in place, and there are no other boats in sight. Let’s boogie while we’ve still got lots of light.”

  Ray turned his bow in the direction of the headland and settled into a fast cadence, Hanna in a parallel course at his side. As Ray focused on his destination, he slowly ran the memory of each of the interviews of the cast, crew, family, and employees from Verity Wudbine-Merone to her son Elliott. He tried to remember the details of each encounter. What had he missed? While it was too early to dismiss the possibility that the murderer was from outside this group, Ray was quite certain he had talked to the killer or killers in the course of the day. The careful, split-second timing necessary to successfully carry out the attack showed extremely careful planning. Was the perpetrator motivated by some recent events or by some smoldering resentment?

  “Ray,” Hanna’s voice had a sense of urgency. “There’s a boat closing fast. I can’t tell if they have seen us.”

  “Do another sécurité call.”

  They paused briefly as Hanna made her call.

  “I don’t see any response. They’re coming straight toward us.”

  “They are at least a mile out. Let’s get out of their way.”

  As they picked up their pace, Ray watched the lights on the approaching craft. He could hear the rumble of the engines, and then the music, a techno beat. As hard as they paddled, the yacht continued to close, as if it was being steered in their direction. Suddenly it veered off to the west, missing their boats by less than forty or fifty yards, the kayaks surfing on its wake. Then it slowly disappeared into the dusk, the engine noise blending with a heavy bass beat.

  “Did you get a name?” asked Ray.

  “No,” said Hanna, still breathing hard, her arms and legs burning from the extended sprint. “I don’t think they ever saw us. Was anyone on the bridge?”

  “Auto pilot,” said Ray. “The guy at the controls was talking, or texting, or watching TV or in the head. They had their VHS turned off or down so as not to be disturbed by the routine chatter.”

  “What can we do?”

  “Be angry at them, and thankful that they missed us. That was a good-sized yacht. They probably wouldn’t have noticed running over us.”

  On the beach in the dull light of the afterglow, as they packed their gear, Hanna asked, “Did you figure out who the killer was?”

  “No, I was distracted. For a little while it became quite unimportant.”

  “Near-death experiences seem to put everything else in perspective,” she said sliding into his arms. “This was a lot more interesting than dinner and a movie.”

  26

  “What time did you get here?” asked Sue, observing the elaborate diagram—a collection of circles and ovals with connecting lines that covered the large whiteboard.

  “I slept for five or six hours, and then I was wide awake. I was just lying there trying to figure out how to get on top of all this information. Eventually I got up and came in. This,” pointing to the whiteboard, “is what I had to do. I needed to draw it out. Too many balls in the air, I can’t do that in my head.”

  Sue settled into her chair and studied the diagram.

  “How was your night?” Ray asked.

  “It was good. Harry’s trying to prove himself as a cook. I guess I’ve blabbed on too much about your culinary skills. I think he feels competitive. That’s a guy thing, isn’t it?”

  Ray looked over at her, but was not quick to answer.

  “Anyway, he did a good job. Fresh salmon and some corn he bought at a farm stand. Couldn’t be better. He made a salad, too. And bought some of those chocolates from the Grocer’s Daughter. I think the man has promise as a hunter and gatherer and perhaps even as a cook. Or he’s being excessively charming in the hope of getting me to move to Chicago. The old bait and switch routine. He keeps talking about different law schools, other kinds of jobs I could pursue, and the joys of living in a great restaurant city.”

  “Is he making any headway?” asked Ray, uncomfortable with the conversation.

  “We’ve had this talk before, Ray. I do have this nagging feeling that I should be thinking about the future. And as you know, this is the first relationship I’ve had in awhile that shows much promise. But I don’t know. How about you? What did you do last night?”

  “Fast paddle on the big lake.”

  “With the doc?”

  “Yes. We went out to the south island and back.”

  “Did you have enough light?”

  “We were pushing it on the return. Almost got mowed down by a large yacht, a thrilling end to a long day. And that sudden rush of excitement took my mind off this,” Ray pointed to the whiteboard, “for a while.”

  “Did you report the incident?” asked Sue.

  “We didn’t catch the name of the boat. At the time it seemed to be more trouble
than it was worth. I was exhausted. I just wanted to go home and hit the bed.”

  “You and the doc, this has been going on for what, six months now? Since I’ve known you, this is close to a personal best.”

  “Don’t get too excited, Sue. I imagine she will wander off to do another residency in some exotic area of medicine. Let’s get back on task,” he said looking up at the board. “You can see what I’ve done, every interview gets its own balloon, below each of those I’ve added additional balloons with information I garnered from the interviews. You will remember some of this from our conversation yesterday. For example, look at Richard Grubbs. In the balloons below I have identity of daughter and suggestion of wife’s affair with Malcolm in their own graphic. And in each of those two balloons you see the V indicating Verity was a source of the information.”

  “I need 10 or 15 minutes to study this,” said Sue.

  “Take whatever time you need,” said Ray. “I’ll go make a fresh pot of coffee for us.”

  “Questions?” asked Ray, returning to the table with an insulated decanter.

  “It looks like Verity gets the most balloons.”

  “Yes,” said Ray. “Verity had all kinds of information, lots of things she wanted me to know. We have Grubbs’ wife and Malcolm, and we have Grubbs’ daughter not talking to her father.”

  “And then Verity lets you know that said daughter has Asperger’s like behaviors. I guess I should say ‘spectrum disorder,’ and that the replacement wife, Brenda, is an alcoholic,” said Sue. “And I have to admit I thought Jill was a bit strange. In our long conversation she only made eye contact once or twice. Most of the time she was looking between us at the far wall. She was absolutely without affect. And then I think about her on stage. I wish we could run the tape back. She seemed like the other actors, full of life and emotion. She wasn’t flat or cardboard. Jill really seemed to be into her part.”

  “I noticed that too,” said Ray. “Interesting that Malcolm encouraged her to read for the play. I wonder what his motives were. He also got Pepper Markley to take a role. She told me they were having trouble finding someone of the right age and gender, and he coaxed her to participate.”

  “So he lets his concierge participate in amateur theater while she’s on the clock?”

  “Some kind of weird work arrangement was going on there,” noted Ray. “Pepper said Wudbine wanted his people available around-the-clock.”

  “Can we go back to Verity for a minute. She had means, motive, and opportunity. And she was certainly dropping information bombs that would move you in several directions.”

  “Yes, but can you see her delivering the fatal thrust?” asked Ray. “Their marriage was over decades ago. She appears to have gotten on with her life. I don’t see her as the….”

  “Maybe not as the killer,” said Sue. “But if we’re thinking about a couple of people. She certainly would be able to flip a switch.”

  “But why? I don’t see it. By all reports they were quite civil.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe old wounds that have been festering for years.”

  “Verity did suggest that Wudbine had been working their son too hard. Again, probably not enough to motivate a homicide. We need to know more about Elliott and his relationship with his father,” added Ray.

  “What’s Elliott like?” asked Sue.

  “Intense, ill at ease. Hard to tell if that’s his normal demeanor or a reaction to the murder. He’s a smoker. A bit unusual, given his age and who he is. Could hardly wait to get out the door to light up. I asked him about who would gain financially from his father’s death. He said most of Wudbine’s fortune would go to the foundation, and that a trust was in place to provide for his stepmother. Elliott also indicated that he was already a wealthy man.

  “So, as you can see,” continued Ray, “two family members, Verity and Jill, would have easy access to Wudbine, as would one of his employees, Pepper Markley. At the back of the theater you have Elliott and Alyson Mickels. They could have slipped in without being noticed. In addition, there’s Grubbs and the other actors and crew. And then there are the colony members, and the list goes on and on. Did you come up with any prints?”

  “I’ve got a partial off the master switch. It’s probably David Johnson.”

  “We should talk to him again today. I’d like to get him back up in the booth, switch off the power and time how long it takes for him to get to the rear of the building and turn it back on. Maybe we can jar his memory a bit. I also want to look at places where an assailant could hide offstage. Let’s do some timing there. How many seconds would it take to move onstage and out the door, or back into the green room.”

  “And Brenda Wudbine?”

  “They’re really protecting her. Lots of comments about her alcoholism. We need to find a way to isolate her. I want to talk to her without anyone protecting her, and I’ve got a sense that Jill Wudbine and the people she oversees will do their best to prevent us from doing that.”

  “Why? What’s their motive?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Ray. “Are they just trying to prevent her making an embarrassment of herself? Given the level of her alleged addiction, I can’t imagine that she’s enormously aware of what’s going on around her. But we do need to find out if she has anything that might help us.”

  “How are you going to pull that one off?”

  “Just keep our eyes open. Be ready when the opportunity presents itself.” Ray paused for a moment, then added, “I’ve put all the audio files in their own folder in the case file. You can access them if there’s anything you want listen to. I’ve asked Jan to convert them into text files.”

  “So where do we start today?”

  “Let me do some paperwork so people get paid on Friday. See if you can have David Johnson meet us at the auditorium at 9:00. Bring a stopwatch. Then we will look for possible hiding places and escape routes for the assailant. Next, we need you to go to Gull House and interview the cook, handyman, and maid while I start talking to the remaining members of the cast and crew. Talk to Grubbs, see if he can get the play people lined up for me. And see if Pepper Markley can line up the Gull House staff. That’s certainly something a concierge should be able to do. Let’s leave a little after 8:00.”

  “One or two cars?”

  “One. You drive. We can talk on the way.”

  27

  David Johnson answered their calls as Ray and Sue came into the backstage area. He was already up in the light booth.

  “Can we join you up there?” Ray asked.

  “Sure. It’s a bit tight with three, but perfectly safe. We won’t all come crashing to the ground. Be careful, I’m sure this doesn’t meet OSHA standards.”

  Sue grabbed hold of the ladder that was permanently mounted six inches off the wall and climbed up to the booth. Ray followed.

  “Like I said, there’s not a lot of room up here,” Johnson explained once Ray had joined them in the booth, a decked rectangle with the dimmers on the wall side. Three sets of steel pipes, secured at corner posts, ran horizontally on the other sides to provide a safe enclosure. “I think it was probably designed for two people, max,” said Johnson.

  “Walk us through what happened on Saturday evening,” said Ray.

  “Where do you want me to start? I went through this with you yesterday.”

  “But now I’m up here, and I can see what you were referring to. As I remember it, you told me you arrived early and got the set lit for the first scene. Once you established that everything was working, you went off to the green room to visit for….”

  “About ten minutes.”

  “Then you came back here.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “So let’s start from the point when you climbed back up. Tell us exactly what you did from that point forward.”

  “The board is sti
ll set up the way it was on Saturday. Do you want me to power things up and walk you through it?”

  “That would be perfect,” answered Ray.

  “Okay, starting on the right-hand side, this rheostat controls the house lights. I should say dimmer, it’s a rheostat dimmer. Don’t want to confuse things with our lingo. So this switch would be thrown, and this dimmer would be all the way up, just like it is now. Let me power up the rest of the dimmers. I had to make a change in the lighting between the first and second scene to reflect the time of day. Okay, lights are on and the work lights above the stage are off. Like I think I told you, these old rheostats are 60 or more years. They are inefficient, hot, and have been known to cause fires. The new boards are all electronic. And the new, high-end stage lights use LEDs, you can control the colors from the board. Not that I could, but it can be done.”

  “And why couldn’t you?” asked Sue.

  “I had a stroke a dozen or so years ago. I’ve recovered, but I’ve been color blind ever since.”

  “How did that affect you professionally?”

  “I closed my practice and did some teaching at the medical school before I fully retired.”

  Ray and Sue looked down on the brightly lit stage.

  “It’s magical, isn’t it?” said Johnson. “The lights make it somehow all real.”

  Ray carefully scanned the area enclosed by the set and the backstage area from the booth to the back wall.

  “So you can see what’s happening onstage and on this side of the backstage area. The set completely blocks your view of the other side.”

  “That’s correct. But you don’t need to know what’s happening there.”

  “So the first act has ended, you’ve made the changes to the lights, then what?”

  “Like I told you yesterday, I remember seeing the prop girl come through. Then Malcolm and Florence came out. Once she had him situated, she left. So then I was sitting right here on this stool, waiting for Tony to give me the word on the house lights. We blink them twice, first at three minutes, and a second time at one minute before curtain. I bring the houselights down just as he pulls the curtain. And I was reading a piece from the Free Press, the sports section. Someone had abandoned it in the green room.”