The Bee Balm Murders

by Cynthia Riggs

  Trip called out, “You sure the check won’t bounce?”

  Laughter.

  “Twenty-six!” cried out Maria Rosa. “Twenty-six!”

  “Sir?” asked Trip.

  “Bitch,” said Basilio.

  “Twenty-six thousand?” said Trip. “Sir?”

  Basilio growled.

  “Going,” said Trip. “Going, going, going, gone! For twenty-six thousand dollars to the angel in the emerald necklace!”

  The drummer drummed. The audience applauded, a standing ovation. Victoria turned to Orion. “What do you suppose that was all about?”

  Orion grinned. “I can only guess.”

  “I wonder where Dorothy is.”

  It was some time before things quieted down enough for Trip to announce that tea, meaning champagne and gourmet cakes and sandwiches, was served, and that winning bidders should take their checks to the volunteer at the table to his right.

  Matt Pease, the photographer for the Island Enquirer, came by. “Mrs. Trumbull, have you seen the woman who contributed the Ditch Witch item? Great story.”

  “Dorothy Roche,” said Victoria. “I saw her before the event. She was in a minor accident, so she may be shy about being photographed.”

  “I’ll keep looking for her. She hasn’t left, according to the gatekeepers.”

  “She’s probably hiding,” said Orion. “She’s a mess with black eyes and a broken nose.”

  “Hiding where, though?” Victoria shook her head. “Something’s not right.”

  Trip held up his hands. “Thank you all, ladies and gentlemen, for the most successful auction in the history of the Outstretched Palm Fund. We’ve topped four hundred thousand dollars.”

  CHAPTER 38

  People rose from their seats with a rustle of clothing, the scrape of chairs being folded, laughter, congratulations, greetings. Voices resounded under the canvas of the tent.

  “Wait here, Victoria. I’ll get you a glass of champagne and a plate of food,” said Orion, and moved along with the crowd away from the tent.

  As soon as he turned his back, Victoria headed toward the stage, where Trip was gathering papers together.

  “Afternoon, Mrs. Trumbull.” Trip snapped an elastic around the papers and stowed them in an inner pocket of his vest. “Some action, all right.”

  “Wonderful job, Trip. Have you seen Dorothy Roche?”

  “Not since before the bidding started. I’m surprised she wasn’t here to accept congratulations. Twenty-six thousand is an all-time record. Press was looking for her.”

  “I’ve got to find her.”

  “When you do, tell her how much we appreciate what she’s done for the community. I’ve got to uncork champagne. Anything I can do for you before I leave?”

  “No, thank you. I’ll look for Dorothy.”

  The stage was set up in front of the wide flower border backed by the tall privet hedge. Victoria climbed down the back steps of the stage, holding the railing tightly. Dorothy had been drinking. She’d probably decided to keep out of sight of the crowd. She did look ghastly.

  The noise of the crowd had faded to the far corner of the area. Victoria heard crickets and the creak and snap of stage boards adjusting to whatever boards adjusted to.

  The platform was about three and a half feet above the soft grass. Dorothy was so obviously drunk, perhaps she’d crawled under the stage where it was cool, like a stray pup. When Victoria had caught her breath, she leaned down, bracing herself with her stick. It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the dim light underneath.

  The smells under the stage were a mixture of mown grass, the slightly vanilla-like fragrance of the sun-washed wooden stage, and moist rich earth.

  No scent of Dorothy.

  Victoria was somewhat relieved. The flower border was an ideal hiding place. Dorothy might have settled in there.

  Victoria walked along the border, parting the lush growth with her stick and calling Dorothy’s name. She hadn’t realized how wide the border was. There was room for a card table and four bridge players to hide. The fragrance of the flowers was overwhelming, now she was close to them, and bruising the blossoms as she probed with her stick.

  Then she spotted a crushed path into the flowers and her nose picked up the scent of Dorothy’s perfume. She pushed the dense growth aside with a feeling of dread.

  * * *

  Orion returned with two plates of food and two flutes of champagne. Most of the chairs had been moved closer to the food, and he stood at the seats he and Victoria had occupied. He assumed Victoria would be in the shelter of the tent, out of the sun, but he didn’t see her.

  As he was puzzling over his next move, Victoria appeared from the back of the stage. Her face was flushed and she was clearly upset. When she saw him, she hurried across the stage, and he met her at the steps the drummer boy had used earlier.

  “What is it, Victoria?”

  “I found Dorothy. Do you have your phone with you?”

  “Is she all right?”

  “We need an ambulance.”

  “She’s not dead, is she?”

  “She’s still breathing.”

  He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed 911.

  “Ask them not to upset the crowd,” said Victoria as Orion spoke to the communications center.

  He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “The police?”

  “Tell them to let Casey know. This isn’t our jurisdiction, but…”

  Orion passed on the message, then snapped his phone shut. “The ambulance and Casey are on their way. So are Edgartown police and the state police.”

  “I’ve got to go back to her.”

  “I’ll let Trip know what’s going on, and be right with you. Where is she?”

  “Lying on her back in the flower border, pretty well hidden. Behind a large clump of crushed delphiniums, with an empty bottle of Scotch.”

  * * *

  “I don’t know how you do it, Victoria,” said Casey, after the ambulance had taken Dorothy away. “The reporter for the paper was looking for her, but no one else would have thought a thing about her not being around.”

  “She was drunk,” said Victoria.

  “The bartenders refused to serve her after she’d had at least five drinks. But you know we found an empty pint of Scotch near her in the flower garden, and another almost-empty pint in her handbag. That much alcohol in her bloodstream, she’d be dead, if you hadn’t found her.”

  * * *

  When Victoria stopped at the door of Dorothy’s hospital room that evening, she had to control her aversion to the wraith on the bed. Dorothy looked like death itself.

  She lay on her back, her skin gray, eyes closed, arms by her sides resting on the light blanket that covered her up to her waist. Clear oxygen tubes led to her swollen and bruised nose. Her black eyes had turned a hideous yellowish green. An IV drip was taped to her right arm, and a plastic identification tag was snapped around her left wrist. The hospital gown, which looked like some man’s underwear, completed the dreary picture of the once glamorous Dorothy.

  Victoria shuddered.

  “Auntie Vic, are you okay?”

  Victoria spun around, almost losing her balance. Her grandniece, Hope, head nurse at the hospital, steadied her.

  “Whoa, Auntie Vic. Take it easy. She’ll recover.” Hope kept her arm around Victoria’s shoulder. “Friend of yours?”

  Victoria shook her head, unable to speak.

  “Whatever. I’ll assume you’re the person responsible for her now. Privacy rules, you know. Come on into her room and sit down. You look as if you need to.”

  Victoria followed this cherished strong grandniece into the room and sat in the chair by the window at the foot of Dorothy’s bed feeling unaccustomedly helpless.

  “Acute alcohol poisoning, as I guess you suspected.”

  Victoria was vaguely aware of the bird feeder hanging outside the window, full of tiny chattering sparrows, and the rose garden in full bl
owzy bloom beyond.

  “We pumped out her stomach, tested her blood alcohol level—almost point seven, incredibly high—gave her a shot of vitamin B, and put her on a dextrose drip.”

  Dorothy groaned. Victoria started to get up.

  “Sit still, Auntie Vic. She’ll be okay. She’ll feel pretty rotten for a while, but if she hasn’t abused her body too much in the past, she’ll recover.”

  Dorothy mumbled, “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”

  Hope looked quizzically at Victoria. “Know what she’s talking about?”

  “Yes,” said Victoria. “I’m afraid I do.”

  * * *

  Early the next morning, three of the organizers of the auction met with Maria Rosa, winner of the Ditch Witch item, at Maria Rosa’s second-floor suite at the Harbor View. Her suite overlooked Edgartown Harbor and the lighthouse. Last night, after the auction, she and Bill Williams had again walked down the sandy path, hand in hand, and she was still caught up in the magic of the evening, in fact, of the entire day.

  She turned politely to the man sitting to her right, who introduced himself as president of the local bank, and the two women with him as treasurer of the auction and a columnist with the local newspaper.

  The bank president wore a blue blazer and white duck trousers, had snow white hair, and was healthily tanned.

  “Thank you for your extraordinary contribution to the auction,” he began.

  Maria Rosa nodded. “It was my pleasure.” And it was, too, she thought. A pleasure.

  He looked down at his papers. “Unfortunately, the woman offering the item, the ride on the Ditch Witch drill rig, is in the hospital. She’s expected to be there for several days.”

  Maria Rosa put her hand to her throat and stroked the emerald necklace. “I’m so sorry. Was it a heart attack?”

  “The hospital isn’t releasing information, naturally. We assume her collapse was brought on by stress.”

  Maria Rosa looked out across the harbor to Chappaquiddick, enticingly green in the morning light. Sailboats were leaving the harbor, perhaps for the day, perhaps bound for faraway places.

  “The committee felt it was only right to credit your account with the money you so graciously donated.”

  The treasurer and newspaper columnist nodded.

  Maria Rosa stood. “I don’t need to ride the Witch. Keep the money.”

  “My dear Mrs. Vulpone!”

  Maria Rosa smiled. “But I accept the luncheon. I’ve already invited a group of fifty.”

  “Friends from New York?” asked the columnist.

  “Not at all,” said Maria Rosa. “Fifty patients from your nursing home.”

  “Windemere?” asked the treasurer. “Walkers and wheelchairs?”

  “Certainly,” said Maria Rosa. “Those things can be managed.”

  CHAPTER 39

  On Monday, Primo drove Victoria home from the hospital, where she’d visited Dorothy. “How’s she doing?” He glanced in the rearview mirror.

  “Physically, she’s recovering, but I think she’s having some mental problems. I don’t feel sorry for her.” Victoria paused. “I suppose I should, even though she brought this on herself.” She met his eyes in the mirror. “I need to talk to you and Umberto. The girls, too.”

  “I’ll pick them up. The girls are shopping and Umberto’s at the beach.”

  He dropped her off and went to fetch the others. She was still standing at the top of the steps when Sean, the beekeeper, arrived.

  “Our friend Sandy has information for you, Mrs. Trumbull.” He turned back to the truck. “Out, kid.”

  The eight-year-old slid out of the passenger seat and pushed his sandy-red hair out of his eyes. He scuffed toward Victoria, a plume of dust rising behind him.

  “Pick up your feet,” said Sean.

  They sat in the cookroom, the boy’s large eyes watching her. His freckles stood out like green dots on his sunburned face. His sneakered feet swung nervously.

  “What sort of news do you have, Sandy?”

  “Nothin’ much.”

  “Ma’am,” said Sean.

  “Yes, ma’am. You asked if anyone seen that big fat man from New York on the Island, and I seen, saw him.”

  “You recognized him from my description?”

  “Well,” Sandy swung his feet, “he’s not tall, like you. He wears sunglasses most of the times I seen him…”

  “Most of the times? How often have you seen the man?”

  “Well, I hang out at the airport. Sometimes one of the pilots gives me a ride in a plane, ma’am.” He glanced at Sean. “I seen him five or six times at Cape Air.”

  “Are you sure this is the man I’m talking about?”

  “I guess. He’s pretty fat and he has kind of a yellow face and he wears a belt with a green buckle shaped like a dollar sign.” He drew the shape of an S in the air. “He’s got a belly so you can’t always see the buckle.”

  “Did he notice you?”

  “No, ma’am. Nobody sees me if I don’t want.”

  “Go on,” said Victoria.

  “He looks like a hopping toad. Big thick lips and when he takes his glasses off, his eyes stick out like a toad.”

  “Did you ever hear his name? Did he give it to the person at the counter?”

  “Sometimes he says Bruce, sometimes something else.”

  “Could you hear any last name?”

  “Volcano?”

  “That’s close enough,” said Victoria. “What sort of luggage did he have?”

  “Luggage?”

  “Suitcase or briefcase or packages.”

  “Well, sometimes when he comes here, he didn’t, doesn’t…?”

  “That’s all right, I won’t correct your grammar. Just tell me what you remember.”

  “Well, coming here he doesn’t have nothin’ with him. Maybe a briefcase. But when he leaves, he almost always has a package, a Cronig’s bag, you know?”

  Victoria nodded.

  “Tied with string, like it’s going UPS.”

  “When did you first see this man?”

  Sandy scratched his head. “Well, school let out in June and before then I only went to the airport weekends, and only when it was warm and I’d helped my dad planting.”

  “Do you recall what flowers were in bloom then?”

  “Your lilacs.”

  “May,” said Victoria. “Excellent, Sandy. Did someone pick him up at the airport?”

  “Mostly an old lady with dyed orange hair.”

  Victoria smiled at the vivid description of the false Dorothy Roche. “What about the past two or three weeks? Did the man carry packages away as usual?”

  Sandy kicked his feet “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Victoria heard the Ferrari drive up. Sandy looked out the window and his eyes widened. “I seen that car here before. That guy knows you?”

  “Yes, he does. Would you like a ride in that car?”

  “You mean it? You mean it?” Sandy sprang out of his chair. “Honest?”

  “We’ll have to ask him,” said Victoria. “But when he hears what you’ve told me, I think it’s quite likely.”

  Sean, who’d been leaning against the door frame, said, “When you get through joyriding, kid, you got a job to do. Getting those frames out of the hives.”

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, Primo returned with a deliriously happy Sandy, who rushed off to Sean and the bees. Orion showed up a few minutes later. Victoria, Orion, the two Vulpone sons, Ginny, and her actress sister crowded around the cookroom table. Umberto held Ginny’s hand under the table, presumably so no one would notice.

  Victoria said, “I should tell you, Ginny, the police aren’t pleased with the way we collected our information.”

  “You didn’t tell them that I…?”

  “No, of course not. I couched our information in terms of educated guesses on my part. I simply wanted you to know you’re not likely to get the credit you deserve.”

 
; “Thank goodness!”

  “The police aren’t stupid. They know that you, by some means, have made it possible to narrow down the identity of Angelo’s killer. Trapping him is another matter and one the police would never condone.”

  Orion folded his arms across his chest.

  “With what Sandy told me, we may be able to tease loose some of the strands of this mess.”

  “You know the killer?” asked Ginny.

  Dorothy, the actress, brushed her hair away from her forehead. The others looked at Victoria.

  “Primo was able to question your Uncle Basilio’s mistress. She calls herself Dorothy Roche.”

  “Me?!” said the true Dorothy.

  “She used your name so Uncle Basilio could charge her expenses to the television studio,” said Primo.

  “That’s outrageous!” said the actress.

  “That’s only the beginning,” said Victoria. “Your uncle and his mistress are involved in drug trafficking.”

  “I should have guessed,” said Primo. “That’s where his money comes from.”

  “Sandy, the beekeeper’s apprentice, gave me information that seems to confirm it.”

  Primo nodded. “Sounds like the mob.”

  “Your uncle may have been scouting for a pickup and transfer place for drugs. When your father told him he planned to invest in an Island-wide project, Basilio realized that would be a good cover.”

  “Sure,” said Umberto, releasing Ginny’s hand and gesturing. “That makes sense.”

  “He could make numerous trips to the Island, picking up deliveries that arrive by private boats,” said Victoria.

  Orion leaned forward and set his elbows on the table. “He and the false Dorothy needed a courier. Tris Waverley?”

  Victoria nodded. “That seems likely. They hired him to spy on you, but really to pick up and deliver drugs.”

  “Did Uncle Basilio kill our father?” asked Umberto. “I know he hated him.”

  “Your father’s interest in the fiber-optics project gave him an excuse to visit the Island,” said Victoria.

  Primo and Umberto glanced at each other. “Perhaps we should mention…?” said Umberto.

  Primo nodded. “Mrs. Trumbull and Mr. Nanopoulos. We’ve been going through our father’s papers. He had decided, a week before he died, that he would not invest in Universal Fiber Optics.”