Trumpet of Death

by Cynthia Riggs

  “O-kay,” said Miranda. “Go ahead, Mr. Zeller. Why did you park at the ball field instead of at Mrs. Trumbull’s?”

  “I was coming back from dinner at my girlfriend’s father’s, and I thought I better get off the Island in a hurry.”

  “May I ask why?” said the sheriff.

  “I thought the dinner guests had all gotten sick because of me.”

  Miranda pushed her chair back and stood. “Mr. Zeller!” She glanced at the sheriff. “He didn’t say that.”

  “But they didn’t get sick,” protested Zack. “Mrs. Trumbull said I should tell you everything.”

  Silence around the table. All stared at Zack.

  Miranda plopped back down into her chair.

  Zack glanced from one to the other. “I thought the mushrooms I gave my girlfriend would make her sick. But she didn’t eat them. She gave them to her father and he served them to his guests. I still thought they were poisonous.”

  Miranda sighed and leaned back in her chair.

  “You can see why I wanted to leave the Island. I thought they’d all gotten sick and possibly someone died. I went to Mrs. Trumbull’s, but there was a cop car there, and I thought they were after me, so I parked at the ball field and was going to walk back and get my belongings, and then I thought I’d better not waste time, since the cops were probably waiting for me.”

  “Mr. Zeller…” said Miranda.

  “But when Mrs. Trumbull came to see me this morning, afternoon, I guess, she said the mushrooms were perfectly good to eat, and all the dinner guests were just fine. No one died.” Zack held up his hands, palms up, and leaned back in his chair. “So there you have it.”

  Silence.

  Mr. Peabody doodled on the pad in front of him. Miranda continued to stare at Zack. The sheriff pushed his chair back and folded his arms over his chest. The videographer kept the camera focused on Zack.

  “You know, I haven’t eaten since yesterday noon.” Zack peered at the faces around the table, all avoiding his eyes. “Any chance I can get something to eat?”

  CHAPTER 14

  The identification of the deceased young woman came through quickly on Saturday afternoon. At least three of the Island’s six police departments had some record of her various exploits, as did the state police.

  Sergeant John Smalley, who had been at the scene when the body was uncovered, had not recognized her then, but on closer inspection at the funeral parlor, which served as the Island’s morgue, identified her as Samantha Eberhardt.

  It was his job, as head of the state police barracks, to notify her next of kin. This was the only part of his job Smalley hated. Moped accidents. Car crashes. Boating accidents. Calling on a parent or husband or wife, knock on the door, they answer, smile fades when they see his uniform. First reaction always is, What have I done? Then they see his somber face and the second reaction is, Oh, my God! He says, “May I come in?” They nod, not able to speak. He says, “I’m afraid I have bad news. You might want to sit.” Their hands go up to their faces. “Is my daughter all right?” “My son?” “My husband?”

  This was even worse, if possible. Telling a guy his daughter, his only child, has been murdered. It was going to be particularly odious breaking the news to Bruno Eberhardt. “Mr. Eberhardt, we believe a young woman found dead on the bicycle path, is your daughter. Would you please come with me, sir. We need you to identify her…” Just stop there. Don’t say “body” or “corpse” or “remains.” To her father, she’s still alive and will be until he sees what she has become.

  * * *

  Bruno Eberhardt slumped out of the funeral parlor onto the loading ramp at the rear, stopped, and leaned against the wall.

  “Sammy,” he mumbled. “My baby girl. She can’t be dead.”

  Smalley kept enough distance between them to give Eberhardt privacy, but he was ready to catch him if he collapsed. You could never tell with these tough-as-steel guys. They were often more shaken up than their fragile-looking spouses.

  “That bastard,” muttered Eberhardt, standing up straight. “That goddamned bastard. I’ll get him, believe you me, I’ll get him. The law can’t compensate me for what that bastard did.” Eberhardt turned and suddenly punched the wall with his fist. Then he held it up and stared at the blood oozing from his knuckles. “You heard me, Smalley. I’ll make that bastard pay and pay and pay for this.” He punched the wall again.

  Smalley winced. He refrained from saying what he should say now, that Zack had not yet been convicted and was deemed innocent until he was proven guilty. This was not the time for that. Nor was it the time to record the threats Eberhardt was making. He, Smalley, would probably voice the exact same threats under the same circumstances.

  “I’ll take you home, Mr. Eberhardt,” Smalley said. Apologies were too feeble. Less said the better. He’d never liked the guy, arrogant prick. But he was a human being in distress, and Smalley hurt for him.

  * * *

  Zack had finished eating a combination of supper, breakfast, and lunch, a meal that was better than most upscale restaurants served, when he heard footsteps coming down the hall outside his cell. At last, he would be free of this nightmarish place with its hot pink walls. But at least he’d had one of the best meals he could remember. He’d have something to tell his buddies at the restaurant about his cell, redecorated for a female incarcerent, according to the sheriff.

  He stood and went to the cell door, held on to the bars, and peered out. Funny, that was exactly what he’d seen prisoners do on TV shows. Hold on to the bars of their cell doors.

  The sheriff and two others. He was about to be free, at last!

  He called out, “Excellent meal, Sheriff. Thanks!”

  “You’re welcome,” said the sheriff. He looked awfully serious.

  Then Zack recognized Miranda, the sleek lawyer lady. A uniformed state cop accompanied them. They, too, looked serious. What was this all about? Trailing along behind the three was the baby-faced deputy with the large empty holster bumping against his leg.

  The sheriff stopped at the cell door and without looking at Zack, beckoned to the state trooper, who stepped forward.

  “Mr. Zeller,” said the sheriff. “I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Samantha Eberhardt.”

  “What are you talking about?” Zack shook the bars of his cell door. “Samantha’s not dead. Mrs. Trumbull said I didn’t kill anyone!”

  The sheriff turned to his deputy. “Read Mr. Zeller his Miranda rights.”

  “Miranda?” Zack interrupted the deputy who had taken a card out of his pocket and was reading something. “She’s my lawyer.”

  “Mr. Zeller,” said Miranda, the lawyer, “you’re not listening. You have a right to a lawyer of your own choosing. In the meantime, I will act as your attorney. Like the man says, I urge you to remain silent. Anything you say they can hold against you.”

  “But I only thought about making Sammy sick, I—”

  “Mr. Zeller!” warned Miranda.

  “But she didn’t eat them.” Zack’s knuckles were white from holding the bars so tightly.

  The deputy unlocked the cell door.

  “Please turn around, Mr. Zeller,” said the sheriff. “Hands behind your back.” To the deputy, “Handcuff him.”

  “I didn’t know she was dead!” cried Zack. “Ouch! That hurts.”

  “Follow me,” said the sheriff.

  * * *

  After her visit to the jail, Victoria changed out of her good suit into her gray corduroy pants and turtleneck shirt, and she and Elizabeth went out to the garden and harvested a large crop of tomatoes.

  They worked at the kitchen table, preparing them for the freezer by trimming the stem ends. Back copies of the Island Enquirer, wetly pink from tomato juice, protected the table. The kitchen smelled of autumn harvest and the ritual of preparing for winter, changed only because the fruit was headed for the freezer, not glass jars.

  The phone rang. Victoria wiped her hands, got up, and ans
wered. The conversation was short. She returned to her seat, somber. “That was Zack.” She picked up her paring knife and set to work.

  “What does he want now?” Elizabeth scooped up a pile of the discarded stems and dropped them into the compost bucket. “I didn’t think inmates were allowed to make calls from jail.”

  “Apparently the sheriff is liberal about phone calls. By the way,” Victoria continued, “I owe you an apology. You were right about him.” She set down her knife.

  Elizabeth plucked a tomato from the basket and dug her knife into it. “I think he’s on some kind of mind-altering substance.” She removed a neat cone of stem. “So, what was the call about?”

  Victoria laid both gnarled hands, stained with juice, on the table. “He’s been charged with murder.”

  The tomato she’d just cored slipped out of Elizabeth’s hand. It rolled off the table and fell to the floor with a splat. Neither she nor Victoria moved to clean it up. “What? What did you say?”

  “Murder. He’s been charged with the murder of that girl Robin and I found on the bicycle path.”

  “I don’t believe it. Why on earth would Zack…” Elizabeth paused. “Have they identified the girl yet?”

  “Yes,” said Victoria.

  “Who?”

  “His girlfriend.”

  Elizabeth set down her knife. “Samantha?”

  Victoria nodded.

  “I don’t believe it. Samantha.” Elizabeth picked up her knife and set it down again. “He told us he was trying to get rid of her. I didn’t dream he meant permanently. Do you think he actually did it?”

  “No.” Victoria shook her head. “No. I don’t. Not for a minute.”

  “But you said he planned to feed her poisonous mushrooms.”

  “Poison is an abstraction. He hoped to induce an abortion with the mushrooms, not kill her.” Victoria picked up her own knife again and reached for another tomato. “Samantha was killed by a blow to her head. I don’t think Zack has the courage to smack anyone over the head with a weapon of any kind.”

  “What are you going to do about it?” Elizabeth looked down at the tomato splayed out on the floor. “Good grief, look what I’ve done.”

  “It won’t be wasted. Put it on the compost heap,” said Victoria. “I’m going to find out who killed her.” She went back to work.

  Elizabeth got up, reached for a spatula, and cleaned up the mess on the floor. “You know, Gram, he doesn’t deserve the time and effort you’re going to have to spend to clear him.”

  “Yes, he does.” Victoria’s jaw was set. She looked very much like the stony-faced ancestor whose portrait graced the front hall.

  Elizabeth sat down again and stared at the half-full basket of tomatoes. “A stay in prison might clear his mind.”

  “He didn’t kill her,” said Victoria. “He doesn’t belong in prison for that. Besides, the real killer is loose, and we have to find him.”

  “Or her.” Elizabeth got up again, went behind her seated grandmother, and put her arms around her. “Good for you, Gram. I hope when I grow up I can be like you.”

  Victoria patted her granddaughter’s hands.

  “Zack’s a jerk,” said Elizabeth. “He doesn’t deserve a minute of your time.” She hugged her grandmother more tightly. “Tell me how I can help.”

  * * *

  Victoria folded up the wet newspapers and put them out on the brick floor of the entry. The papers would be added to the compost heap tomorrow along with the tomato trimmings.

  All of the prepared tomatoes were in plastic bags, ready to go into the freezer where they would become hard as billiard balls. Next winter, with the coming of soup and stew weather, Victoria would dip a few of the rock-hard tomatoes into hot water, slip off the peels, and drop them into the pot.

  Elizabeth stowed the last full bag into the freezer. “All done, Gram. What next?”

  “Supper,” said Victoria. “I’m hungry.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Late on Saturday, Sergeant Smalley called Joel Killdeer, head of the forensics lab off-Island.

  “Need your help, Joel.”

  “Again?” asked Killdeer. “Seems like we were there not too long ago. Thought you wrapped things up.”

  “This is a different case,” said Smalley. “The body of a girl was found by the bicycle path. We don’t know where she was killed. Figured we’d better start with her house.”

  “It’s Saturday, you know.”

  “Yeah. I know.” Smalley was back in his office at the state police barracks, his tie loosened, his usually immaculate shirt rumpled, his boots in need of a buffing. A coffee mug with an inch of cold coffee was perched on his desk.

  “Kind of late on a Saturday.”

  “Damnation, Joel, don’t you think I know?” Smalley took a sip of the coffee and put his mug down with a grunt.

  “What was that?”

  “Never mind. We’ll put your guys up overnight and feed them, okay?”

  “Has anyone been in the house since she was found?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Smalley. “Not us.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “I owe you a beer.”

  “Make it two. I’ll need to bring my fishing gear. Got a longstanding date with Janet Messineo.”

  “Right.” Smalley looked down at his dusty boots, leaned over and wiped them with his hand, smearing them. He grunted again.

  “You sound bad,” said Joel. A drawer squeaked open. Paper rustled. “Okay, I’m looking at the boat schedule. We can make the eight-thirty. Gets in at nine fifteen. If we miss that, I’ll let you know. There’s a late boat.”

  “I’ll be at the ferry dock to lead you to the place,” said Smalley. “It’s up-Island. We circled it with crime scene tape. One of my guys is there now and will stay until you’re done.”

  “See you in a couple hours,” said Killdeer and disconnected.

  * * *

  The forensics mobile lab arrived on schedule, nine fifteen. Smalley had parked his police vehicle near the dock and was on foot to meet them as they drove off the ferry.

  Joel Killdeer was driving. He was chewing gum. His skin, the color of black coffee, made his face hard to see in the dim light. He wore a Red Sox baseball hat that covered what Smalley knew was a shiny, shaved head.

  “Thanks, Joel. I’m parked over there.” Smalley pointed.

  “No problem. Two beers. Wow.” Killdeer smiled, showing great white teeth.

  “Follow me,” said Smalley.

  This time of year, this time of night, traffic was light. They made the trip up-Island to Chilmark in a half hour and turned off the paved road onto a dirt road, up a slight incline and onto the drive that led to Samantha’s rental house. Smalley led the way and parked outside the circle of yellow tape draped around bushes and stakes driven into the ground.

  Killdeer parked next to him and got out of the van. Two others joined him, a young woman with spiky green hair, and an equally young man with a large mustache. It was too dark to make out much about them.

  Killdeer introduced them.

  “We’ve met before,” said Smalley, shaking hands with the woman and nodding at the man.

  “Nobody’s been inside, right?” asked Killdeer.

  “Not since we identified the girl’s body this afternoon.”

  Killdeer nodded to his crew. “Okay, you guys, suit up and we’ll get to work.”

  It was fully dark now and a chilly dew had settled on the grass. The Milky Way was a gauzy band of light stretched across the sky. The three forensic specialists stepped over the crime scene tape and donned white suits, covered their shoes with white shoe covers, slipped white hoods over their heads. Three white ghosts in the dark night.

  “I’ll be in my vehicle,” said Smalley.

  Actually, he was standing outside leaning against his car gazing up at the stars, hoping to see a meteor on this clear, crisp night, when the team reappeared fifteen minutes later. Smalley had expected them to
take hours, even with such a small house.

  They tugged off their white apparel, blending into the dark night once again.

  “What’s up?” asked Smalley, surprised to see them.

  “Nothing,” said Killdeer. “Nothing at all. Someone cleaned the place like an operating room.”

  “Nothing?” asked Smalley.

  “We’ll come back tomorrow and give it a thorough go-through in daylight, but I have to tell you, I’d like to hire the cleaner who did this place. Do my house.”

  * * *

  Bruno Eberhardt couldn’t sleep. He got out of bed and paced. He thought about his dead daughter, her entire beautiful being transformed into that grotesque thing he’d had to identify.

  Zack Zeller. A hateful name. The law will never mete out to that beast, that worm, the justice he deserves. Eberhardt lost no time in planning his strategy. He would deal with Zack Zeller in his own way. At some point, Zeller would be transferred from the local jail to a secure facility off-Island.

  How much time did he have before that took place?

  He went downstairs and sat at the head of the table in his dining room, at the very same place he had sat when Zeller fled from that ludicrous botched attempt at killing Samantha. With mushrooms. Black trumpets. Well, the edible, delectable, prized trumpets of death didn’t work, did they. So you tried again and succeeded.

  He set his elbows on the table and laid his head on his hands. His daughter. His only child. Zeller didn’t deserve to be in a prison where he’d be cossetted the rest of his life. Where else on this planet would prisoners dine on meals prepared by a French chef, incarcerated for drug possession? On the other hand, he didn’t deserve the easy way out by death. Had Samantha died quickly? Had she suffered?

  Eberhardt glanced at the window, seeing nothing but his reflection, the dark night mirroring him.

  Thoughts tangled in his mind. Imprisonment. For life. What about constructing a high-security facility of his own in which to confine Zeller, a facility in which Zack would spend every second of the rest of his life regretting that he’d ever met Samantha.

  He’d get him out somehow.

  Once Zeller was out of jail and off-Island, he, Eberhardt, would hold him in a secure place until he could fashion a prison that no one would know about, no one could find, and no one could escape from. Zack would vanish.