Cape Cod caper

by Margot Arnold

  The assistant D.A, turned to the jury. "I should point out from the medical evidence that the body was too decomposed to have been put in the bog that late, so you may assume that it was placed in the bog either just before or just after the flooding of the bog in the first week of October." Then to Jones: "Now, could you tell us something about the inspection of the bogs. In other words, had it not been for Mr. Dyke's keen observation which led to the fortuitous find, how long would it have been before your inspection of the water depth in the drainage ditches revealed the body?"

  The witness looked sullen. "Can't say for certain. We get a build-up of weed from time to time that has to be cleared out, but unless it gets real bad or we have a lot of rain ... well, bogs take care of themselves mostly, till harvest. Might have been found then or, seeing as how it was stashed away in that there railway culvert, might not. Might never have been found."

  "I see. Well, Mr. Jones, you may step down."

  He was replaced on the stand by Detective Barnabas Eldredge of the state police, who narrated his part in the case and the so-far futile attempts to identify the body in the clipped flat accent of the native Cape Codder. He was a small, wiry, sandy-haired man, with a deceptively mild face which many people had, to their cost, been taken in by; Barnabas Eldredge was a lot tougher than he looked. The D.A. did not seem to be interested in probing muck further, but the detective was not to escape that easily. He was about to step down when the forewoman of the jury waved a large meaty arm above her head as if to order a charge of the Valkyries. "I should like to ask a question," she boomed. The D.A. looked pained but the judge-coroner nodded. "You say you still have no idea who the man is, yet I've heard tell you are planning to bury him. Is that correct?"

  "We held off as long as we could, but soon as the inquest is over he'll be buried as a John Doe, first thing tomorrow," Eldredge snapped.

  The forewoman bridled. "No need to take that testy tone with me, Barney Eldredge. He's being buried then at the taxpayers' expense, so I've a right to ask. Seems to me there's a sight more you could do about finding out who he is before planting him out of our pockets. You know he's not a Cape man."

  "I don't know that." Eldridge glared at her.

  "No one missing from round here," she said firmly, and there was a murmur of support from her fellow jurors. "Seems to me you ought to send him up to Boston and let them handle it if it's beyond you, or do a sight more enquiring around here. How about the Dimolas? Have you questioned them? He was found on their land. Why don't they bury him? They can afford it." Penny felt an almost electric wave of hostility sweep through the courtroom as Eldredge rapped out, "That's ofiBcial business and none of yours."

  "It is too my business as a Cape Cod resident and a taxpayer," she roared. "Pussyfooting, that's what you've been doing, Barnabas Eldredge. We don't want another Chappa-quiddick—once was quite enough!"

  A mild commotion erupted with everyone talking at once and the judge-coroner banging his gavel, trying to regain control. The incident both amused and shocked Penny a little, giving her a brief glimpse of an undercurrent of raw emotion and hostility that lay beneath the placid surface of the Cape. No one loves a rich relation, she thought to herself, and that seems particularly true around here. She felt a twinge of sympathy for the absent and unknown Dimolas —but were they absent? She took a quick look around the courtroom, which had more spectators than usual because of the interest in the case. A movement at the back caught her eye, and she saw a short, dark-haired girl slip quietly out of the double doors under cover of the now subsiding commotion. There was nothing remarkable about her, save perhaps for the fact she was wearing tinted glasses on a gloomy day, but was she one of them? Could be, Penny concluded.

  Order had been restored and the jury charged to consider its findings. It filed out in rather mutinous silence and filed in again in what seemed a very short space of time. There was little doubt of what its verdict had to be: "Murder of a John Doe by person or persons unknown." But there was a characteristic rider, instigated no doubt by the unmollified forewoman: "That the police should bend every effort to uncover the identity of the John Doe and to discover his murderer."

  Well, if they don't, I most certainly intend to, Penny thought, and for the first time felt a rise of confidence. If sympathetic vibes had anything to do with it, at least she knew the people of the Cape were with her all the way.

  CHAPTER 8

  What surprised Penny most about the Dimolas was their youth.

  She had built up a mental picture of Rinaldo Dimola as the venerable patriarch of his clan, and of his family as mature and middle-aged. Now, looking down the long dinner table, she realized how absurd that notion had been. Rinaldo Dimola was only a handful of years older than herself; his elder son, Steven, now sitting at her right, a bare thirty years old; and the rest of the faces around the ornate table younger than that. The Dimolas were clearly clumped closely together in age. Alexander, now sitting on her left, could not be more than a year younger than Steven, and Maria, sitting next to the Dimola heir, only a couple of years younger than that. Ann Langley sat opposite to her and next to Alexander, and the three Dimola wives sat in a bunch at the bottom of the table: Annette at the head, impassive of face and poised, Inga to her right, Wanda to her left.

  The Dimola men. Penny reflected, had remained true to the Italian preference for blondes, since all three wives were fair in varying shades: Inga with the typical ash-blonde hair of the Swede coiled around her large head in sleek braids; Wanda a platinum—which may have come out of a bottle—done in a short Hamell cut; and Annette with golden, silky hair done in a modified Farah Fawcett-Majors style that did not particularly suit her thin. Madonna-like face. But there was no doubt about it, they were all three extremely decorative.

  Penny had been given the seat of honor at the head of the long table opposite Annette Dimola. She perched un-easily, practically engulfed by Rinaldo's high-backed Renaissance chair, feeling almost sacrilegious. Rinaldo was absent in body, but his spirit still brooded over the room, so that tones were muted in the sporadic conversations going on around the table.

  The dinner was excellent, which for Penny, to whom good food was a true joy of life, proved a most tantalizing distraction from her chief task of observing. She kept up a polite chitchat with the slight and serious Steven and the hefty Alexander, who was indeed the image of his absent father, while she kept a watchful eye on the rest of the table.

  Apart from the two men no one seemed to have much to say. Maria was completely silent, and stared in concentration at Penny with rather beady dark eyes. She was certain now that Maria was the girl she had seen at the inquest. Had she gone as a scout for the Dimolas or as an interested party. Penny wondered. Inga, in the seat beyond, said little because she was completely engrossed in her food, taking large helpings, polishing off her plate with a greedy zest, and then looking expectantly around for the next course. While Penny appreciated her warranted enthusiasm she thought it explained the meatiness of her large, full-bodied figure. If she goes on at that rate all the time, she'll be a blimp before she's forty. Penny thought.

  By contrast Wanda Dimola was hardly eating a thing, toying with her plate and pushing it away after only a mouthful or two. She looked pale and strung out, and after the third course gave up all pretense of eating, lighting up cigarette after cigarette, which she would smoke for two or three jerky puffs and then mash out with a savage gesture of the slim, trembling hand. Annette Dimola was eating slowly and sparingly, as if unaware of what was before her. She occasionally would pass some remark to Inga or Ann but appeared to be ignoring Wanda. Bad blood there? or was Wanda a family problem? Something else to find out. After a particularly succulent dessert of a Viennese nut torte with whipped cream heavily piled up, Annette leaned forward and addressed Penny directly. "Shall all of us take our coffee and liqueurs in the drawing room. Dr. Spring? We can talk more easily there."

  They filed out haphazardly into the huge living room with
its spectacular view of Massachusetts Bay. Even here, though most of the furniture was ultramodern and opulently comfortable, there were a few Italianate touches, such as a blue velvet seat-in-the-round, the like of which Penny had never seen anywhere but in Italian historical movies of the Risorgimento age, and a very ornate gaming table done in marquetry. It was evident that Rinaldo had to put his insignia everywhere, even on his son's living quarters.

  They settled in a ring of chairs grouped around a very large teak Danish coffee table and looking out over the bay. Wanda had disappeared, and Ann went off with a murmured excuse that she had some letters to finish typing. After a few minutes Steven wandered out after her, a fact Penny noted with interest but which irked her, since she had been hoping for a little more intimate conversation with him than the dining table had afforded. Sipping her coffee, she was wondering how she was going to bring up her main burning interest when Alexander did it for her.

  He put down his own cup and, clearing his throat, addressed her rather as if he were opening a board meeting. "Dr. Spring, we realize your deep concern over what has happened to Zebediah Grange and appreciate your determination to get to the bottom of this murderous attack. Let me say we feel exactly as you do. Zeb Grange is one of my father's oldest and dearest friends, someone we have known practically all our lives, so if there is anything any of us can do to assist you, you have only to say the word. Money, transportation, accommodations, whatever you need."

  "That is very thoughtful of you, Mr. Dimola," Penny murmured, "but offhand I can't think of anything, except, perhaps, some information."

  "Information?" His tone was suddenly wary.

  "Yes. You see in a sense Zeb had already ... well 'retained' I think is the proper word ... my services on another aspect of this present situation, so my expenses have been taken care of. I have rented a car and, as you know, I am staying with Ann, who is an old student of mine and which seems to suit her so far."

  "But with Ann going away I do feel you'd be more comfortable here," he cut in smoothly. "There is, as you see, lots of room, and you'd be spared time-consuming domestic worries."

  "Ann going away?" Penny was startled, for Ann had made no mention of it.

  "Oh, yes. Just for a couple of days. There is an important antique auction in New York she and Steven must attend. She always acts as Steven's buyer and bidder for obvious reasons." His tone was blandly arrogant. "So, in view of the fact that you'd be alone in the cottage, and I think that might be unwise, I do most strongly urge you to move up here."

  Penny hesitated as she thought rapidly. She was being invited—almost summoned—into the lion's den. If it would give her an excellent chance of getting to know the Dimolas at first hand, on the other side of the coin, it would enable them to keep close tabs on her and her activities; and indeed—if one of them was a murderer—might be dangerous. However, she was making precious little headway in her present state—so "dare all, gain much," she concluded. "Well, thank you for the invitation, if it's really all right with you. I'm afraid I come and go rather a lot." She looked enquiringly at Annette, who had sat silent through the exchange.

  "No trouble at all," Annette murmured in her low, melodious voice, "though I'm afraid we are not a very lively household. Dr. Spring, due to my husband's physical condition."

  "I understand that, and I was very sorry to hear about his illness, but I believe Mr. Dimola is showing signs of improvement, is he not?"

  A faint animation came into the impassive face. "Yes, there are signs that his speech may be returning—the doctor has great hopes..."

  Alexander cut her off. "Er, you said 'information,' Dr. Spring. I must say that rather puzzles me. All of us were terribly shocked by what happened to Zeb Grange, but we know nothing about the attack other than what Ann has told us."

  Again Penny hesitated. Shock tactics might be dangerous at this early stage, but she decided they were worth a try. "Oh, not information about that," she said, "but about the business Zeb was consulting me on—the reason he was attacked."

  "What business was that?"

  "Why, the murder, of course," she said blandly, "the body in the bog."

  A cold silence congealed around her as they all stared at her; Inga's pale blue eyes were narrowed, Annette's hazel ones shrewdly appraising. Maria's veiled, Alexander's hard. "I'm afraid I don't understand," he said stiffly. "What possible connection could Zeb have had with that—and how could it possibly concern us?''

  "I have every reason to believe he knew about the body as far back as last fall and that he was silenced because he knew more about it—probably the man's identity—than someone local cared to have revealed, someone who got wind of the fact he was about to reveal it to me. And as to how it concerns you, I am further convinced that the murdered man was in some way connected with your father or your fathers business."

  "But what makes you believe that?" Alexander exploded angrily.

  "Because when I was summoned here last fall Zeb refused to tell me at that time. It must have been just after your father's stroke, and I don't think he felt he could reveal anything to me until he talked with your father."

  "You were here last fall?" Alexander seemed stupefied by this news.

  "Indeed I was." Penny decided to stretch the truth a little. "Just after Zeb had found the body, but by the time I got here it had been moved from its original hiding place." She decided to back-pedal a little. "It's a great misfortune that the two cases are being handled by two separate police forces, when they should be considering the two as one. But in some ways this may be an ultimate advantage. Zeb, I am certain, was protecting your father's interests, and / am interested in protecting Zeb's, so anything you can tell me will be of help. I hope you can see that. You can help me enormously by just clearing the ground for me. For instance, have any servants left or disappeared during that time?"

  The tension seemed to ease a little. "Only one of the groundsmen, and he took a job in Osterville," Annette said.

  "Were you expecting any visitors or businessmen here who did not show up when expected?"

  Annette seemed about, to say something but Alexander said abruptly, "None. We have done very little entertaining here in the last two years, and none at all since my father's stroke. And he kept all business conferences for Boston. This was where we came to relax, where we escaped from business." His tone was almost bitter.

  "And were you all here when your father was stricken?" "As a matter of fact we were. It was on a weekend, a Saturday, as I recall, in the morning."

  "Could you tell me a little more about that?" "Well, let's see. It was quite late in the morning. My father was in his study. Zeb had been up to see him earlier. The rest of us were mostly outside—playing tennis, I think—because it was a beautiful spell of Indian summer. Inga went in to see if he wanted to go sailing after lunch, it was such a beautiful day. She found him slumped over his desk, called the rescue squad, called us, then we all went off with him to the hospital. That was about it, wasn't it?" he appealed to Inga, who nodded nervously. "He was taken to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis?" "Yes. He stayed there ... oh ... two or three days. Then his own doctor from Boston decided he could be brought back here, since we had all the facilities and he felt the home atmosphere might bring him around quicker." "And the date of his stroke?" "September 29," Alexander said promptly. "And I was here on the 8th of October," Penny murmured. "So somewhere around or between those dates a man came to Masuit and was murdered, his body buried, his body moved ... A busy person the murderer was that week." She looked at them steadily, her mild hazel eyes suddenly hard. "Busy but unfortunate."

  "Why do you say that?" His voice was subdued. "Because it was ill luck that Zeb discovered the body in the first place, even worse that I happened to be around at the same time, and most unlucky of all that the body was rediscovered and Zeb called me in again. An ill-starred murderer."

  "You surely don't believe in astrology. Dr. Spring?" Maria spoke for the first time, and her tone was f
aintly mocking.

  "Such stuff and nonsense, all of it!" Inga snorted. Annette seemed to draw further into herself.

  Penny returned to the attack. "Have you any idea what precipitated your father's stroke. Any sudden worry or anxiety, any unusual pressure?"

  Alexander shook his head. "None. In fact, quite the opposite. The few weeks before his stroke he seemed far more like his old self than he had been for, oh, about two years—as if he'd solved some problem that had been weighing on him and that all was well again."

  "A business problem?"

  He knitted his heavy brows. "Well, there are always some problems around in a business the size of ours, but nothing at all serious."

  "Did your father have any great enemies? After all, he is a very powerful man."

  For the first time Alexander laughed, revealing strong, white and even teeth. "Really, Dr. Spring, I think you've been seeing too many movies. The wicked head of a financial empire grinding the faces of the poor, etc., etc. No, my father is a man who makes friends, not enemies. His is not the kind of business acumen that flourishes on the misfortunes of others. Rivals he may have, enemies, no. And we have no trouble with the Syndicate or the Mafia, and I don't go around with a gun under my armpit to protect my father's back." He smiled at her indulgently and shook his head. "In fact multimillionaires don't lead half as exciting lives as people think they do, nor are they very different from anyone else. The Howard Hugheses are the exception, not the rule."

  Maria threw back her head and laughed suddenly, and Penny felt a little thrill of discovery—her teeth were strong, white and even too, but one was missing; her left incisor had been removed, and Penny could see the thin flash of gold on the small bridge to the inserted false tooth. "You shouldn't be in such a hurry to take father off the hook," she said to her brother. "The next thing you know Dr. Spring will be having the rest of us under her detecting glass. So to save you time, I don't have any enemies either that I'd want to murder and plant in a bog, no ex-husbands, no spurned lovers, no one."