Lucy was surprised to recognize Howard White.
Pale and drawn, he hardly seemed the imperious chairman of the board of selectmen.
"Are you all right?" asked Lucy. "Should we call the rescue squad?"
"Oh, no." White spoke with some effort, he was out of breath and his chest was heaving.
"The fire station's just down the street—I'll get an EMT," said Lucy.
"I'm all right," The words came out in a rush. White continued to breathe heavily. "I just need to catch my ... my breath. It's the cold you see."
Lucy hesitated. Her instincts told her he needed help, but she knew White would hate the embarrassment of causing a fuss at the parade. Indeed, he did seem to be getting back some of his color and to be breathing more easily.
"How foolish of me," he said. "I was fooled by this mild weather and was rushing to meet my wife. I should have taken my time. It's this darned asthma.''
"Shall I go and get her?"
"No, no. I'll be fine. I'll just go on slowly, as I should have in the first place. I apologize for being so much trouble."
"Not at all," said Lucy, watching as he made his way cautiously down the street.
"Poor old fellow," said Bill.
"Yup," agreed Lucy, mentally scratching another suspect off her list. Miss Tilley was undoubtedly correct that Howard White wasn't mourning Curt Nolan's death, but Lucy doubted very much that he would have been physically capable of committing the evil deed. That war club was heavy; Lucy herself had held it when Rumford had brought it to the flintknapping workshop at the library. There was simply no way Howard White could have lifted the club and delivered a fatal blow, especially since it had been at least twenty degrees colder on the day of the football game. If temperature triggered his asthma and he was having trouble on a mild day, he would have been in serious trouble on a really cold day.
The parade continued but Lucy wasn't watching; she was lost in her thoughts. She was thinking of the button Barney had described. It sounded like the sort of button that was often used on tweed sportcoats—the sort of sportcoat that Fred Rumford almost always wore. Once again she remembered that day at die library.
"Mom! Mom!" Zoe was screeching, waving madly at Santa atop his fire truck. "I want to tell Santa what I want for Christmas!"
"Okay. What do you want to do, Sara? Do you want to visit Santa Claus?"
Sara rolled her eyes in disgust. Her mother should surely know better than to ask a question like that of such a mature individual as herself.
"You take Zoe to see Santa," said Bill. "Sara and I will go on over to the football field and see who wins the prize for the best float. You can meet us there."
Taking Zoe's hand, Lucy headed for the fire station, where Santa traditionally held court. By the time they arrived, however, the line of children eager to tell him their Christmas wishes was halfway down the street.
"I hate standing in line," said Lucy.
Disappointment clouded Zoe's little face and she stuck out her bottom lip in a pout.
Lucy pulled a schedule from her pocket and checked the time.
"Look. Santa's going to be here for another hour. Why don't we do something else for a while and come back in forty-five minutes or so? The line will be much shorter then."
"What could we do?"
"How about this," said Lucy excitedly, spying an opportunity to continue her investigation. "There's an open house at the college museum. You know you love the mummy."
Zoe nodded. She was fascinated by the exhibit of a drab and dusty mummy case that contained the well wrapped remains of an ancient Egyptian workman.
"Okay," she said.
As they walked the three blocks to the museum, Lucy told herself she wasn't really involving her child in a murder investigation. Of course not. She was taking Zoe to see the mummy, which was just one of the many strange artifacts William Winchester had collected on his grand tour and later donated to the college he had created back in 1898. No, her main interest was amusing Zoe, but if the opportunity rose to question Fred Rumford, she would certainly take advantage of it.
As she had expected, few people were attending the open house at the college museum. Lucy and Zoe helped themselves to lemonade and cookies from the table set up in the lobby. Then they wandered through the largely empty rooms studying the old fashioned glass exhibit cases.
One case contained artifacts collected in Polynesia, including spears, drums, and a plaster model of a woman wearing a grass skirt Lucy looked at the faded photograph of William Winchester surrounded by several half naked native women and noticed he seemed remarkably dour for a man in that situation.
"Come on, Mom. The mummy's in the next room."
Lucy followed as Zoe ran up to the glass case, then stopped short.
"Is it really a dead person?" Zoe asked.
"Yes, it is. But the person has been dead for a very long time. Thousands of years."
"Why did they wrap it up like that?"
"It was their religion."
"I wouldn't like to be tied up like that"
"Neither would I. Not if I was alive. But once you're dead, it doesn't matter. You don't know what's happening to you."
Zoe had crouched down, trying to get a better view of poor old Asherati the stonecarver, and Lucy wondered what the poor fellow would think of his new situation if he were able to. He had died secure in the knowledge that his remains would be properly prepared for the afterlife; he would probably be horrified to find himself a subject of curiousity in a New England museum.
Leaving, they passed the empty display case that usually contained the war club. Lucy paused for a minute, thinking sadly of Curt Nolan. When she was leaving, she spotted Fred Rumford coming out of his office. To her disappointment he was wearing a blue blazer with brass buttons.
"I see the police still have the war club," she said, approaching him. "Do you know when you'll get it back?"
He shook his head. "They say it's evidence. We may not get it back until after the trial—if there is a trial, that is." Rumford grimaced. "Considering they have to figure out who killed Nolan and catch him before they can even have a trial, it could be years before we get the club back."
"What if they don't make an arrest? What if the case is never solved? Do you get the club back?"
"That," he said with a grim nod, "is the sixty-four-thousand dollar question. The answer I got was, 'maybe.'"
"I guess you could sue them," said Lucy, ignoring Zoe's tugs on her arm. She'd gotten the chance to question Rumford and she wasn't going to let it pass.
"I guess I'd have to if it came to that," said Fred. "The problem is, of course, that the war club is centuries old. It's extremely fragile and needs special care. Controlled humidity and temperature. Which I'm pretty sure it's not getting in some evidence locker at state police headquarters."
Rumford's voice had gotten louder as he spoke; he was clearly very upset. "It's bad enough that they take it out of the museum and wave it around at the pep rally every year, but there's nothing I can do about that Believe me, I've tried. It's outrageous, but people didn't understand how to properly care for primitive artifacts when William Winchester wrote his will specifying the annual display at the football game." He seemed to run out of steam. "I've learned to live with it. I mean, it's been going on for nearly a hundred years. And it was never a problem until now."
Lucy nodded, hugging Zoe to her side. The little girl was getting restless and Lucy didn't want her to wander off.
"I know how upset you were when Chris White didn't return it after the rally."
"You bet I called the cops and they were great They tracked the kid down, but no club. Chris couldn't be bothered getting it back here—he gave it to Nolan. Of all people!"
"You know," said Lucy, looking at Rumford closely and watching his reaction, "I think Nolan might have been just as concerned as you about the club. I heard he took it for safekeeping and intended to return it to the museum."
"That's
ridiculous!" exclaimed Rumford. "You know as well as I do that Nolan's always said the war club belongs with the tribe."
"Ellie told me he wanted it for the tribal museum—the one that's part of the casino deal." Lucy held tight to Zoe's hand; the little girl was squirming, trying to run away. "She's certain he was going to return it to you. What I wonder is whether he tried to do that at the game? Maybe you were the last person to see him alive."
Rumford looked at her suspiciously. "You know, the police asked me that same question."
"The police questioned you?"
"Oh, sure." His face reddened with the admission. "I guess I'm a suspect." He looked around the museum, as if to reassure himself it was still there and he was still its director. Then he gave a short, abrupt laugh. "Oh, well. I'm probably in good company. Half the town would have liked to kill him!"
That was exactly the problem, thought Lucy as she and Zoe left the museum: too many suspects and none at all. Reluctantly, she crossed Rumford from her list of suspects. Not because he couldn't have killed Nolan; Lucy thought that Rumford would have liked nothing better. It wasn't that he couldn't have committed murder, but he wouldn't have, not using the war club. He would never have risked damaging such a precious artifact.
"I'm going to ask Santa for a Barbie Bakes Cakes oven," said Zoe, her mouth full of cookie.
"You're too big to sit on Santa's lap, aren't you?"
"Yes, I am."
"Then how does he know what you want for Christmas?"
"He just knows."
"He does? How?"
"Magic, I guess. Santa magic."
That was what it would take, she thought, to get what she really wanted for Christmas. Even Santa would be hard pressed to come up with a lead in this case.
CHAPTER 15
Looking out the laundry room window, Lucy saw it had started to snow. Not heavily, but scattered tiny flakes were drifting down and a light frosting had collected on the cars in the driveway.
It was almost noon on Sunday and Lucy had spent most of the morning doing laundry. The girls had been up for hours. Elizabeth had gone ice skating with some friends, Sara was working on a school project at a classmate's house, and Zoe was at the Orensteins', playing with her best friend, Sadie.
Lucy pulled one of Toby's shirts out of the laundry basket and began to fold it Snow had been forecast, and if the kids had been smart, she thought they would have gotten up early for the drive back to Coburn. If they had, they would almost be there by now. But as it was, it was nearly noon and they were still asleep in the family room, and it would probably be snowing heavily by the time they got going.
Lucy didn't like to think of them driving on the interstate in heavy snow; she doubted Matt was an experienced winter driver. He probably would try to go 65 miles an hour in spite of bad visibility and slippery roads.
Pulling another shirt out of the basket—an expensive designer shirt Toby had received as a graduation present—Lucy groaned. The pocked was ripped, a cuff was dangling loosely, and several buttons were missing. Whatever could have happened to it?
It was hard to understand how his clothes could become quite so stained and torn in the library, where he ought to be spending most of his time. Summer camp, basic training, survival courses—she could see how such programs would be tough on clothing. But French 101, freshman composition, calculus, and theories of government? It hardly seemed they could account for the sorry condition of Toby's wardrobe.
The pipes began to hum; the college kids were starting the series of showers with which they began every day. Lucy sent up a quick prayer to the plumbing gods, begging that the hot water heater would hold out.
It was at times like these that she missed her father. He had served in North Africa in World War II and had been a master of the one minute shower. She smiled, remembering him acting out the process for her, fully clothed, of course, in the living room. He could teach these kids a thing or two about conserving water, she thought, as she headed for kitchen.
"I've got some clean clothes for you—don't forget to pack them," she told Toby, who was pulling a carton of eggs out of the refrigerator.
Matt was standing at the stove, cooking bacon, and Jessica was sitting on the floor, reorganizing her duffel bag. That was the only explanation Lucy could come up with for the mess of clothing and personal articles that was strewn all around her.
"Toby, a lot of your clothes are ripped. What have you been doing?"
Matt laughed. "I told you your mother would be ticked," he said.
"I was on the rugby team," said Toby.
"Don't they have uniforms?"
"It's a club sport."
"Oh. Well, from now on, if you're going to play, wear sweats, okay?"
"Okay," said Toby. Then, surprising her, he wrapped his arms around her and enveloped her in a bear hug. Lucy responded with a squeeze and ruffled his hair.
'Tough guy, huh?" Matt said, smacking him with the spatula. Toby grinned and put up his fists.
Watching them scuffle, Lucy hoped Toby's T-shirt, already ripped at the shoulder, would last a little longer. She tiptoed through Jessica's assorted piles and went into the family room, intending to put Toby's clean clothes by his backpack. The sight that greeted her, however, made her gasp.
The normally neat, pleasant room looked like a disaster area. The couch had been stripped of its cushions. Clothing, shoes, blankets, sleeping bags, and pillows covered the floor. And for some inexplicable reason, the shade had been removed from one of the lamps. The window blinds, of course, were tightly closed. What did she expect? she thought, snapping the cord. You couldn't sleep until noon if the light came in, could you?
She was sitting on the uncushioned sofa, staring glumly at the mess, when Bill came in.
"I wish they'd gotten an early start," he said, looking out the window. "The snow's starting to come down pretty heavily."
"It'll take them hours to pack all this stuff," she said with a weak little wave of her arm.
"Maybe the storm will be over by the time they leave."
"Buck up, Bucky," said Bill, pulling a couch cushion out from under a tangle of bedding. "We can have them packed and on the road in no time."
"Aye, aye, Captain," said Lucy, jumping to her feet and rolling up a sleeping bag.
An hour later the snow had petered out, leaving a scant inch on the roads. Lucy and Bill stood on the porch, waving as Matt floored the gas pedal and sent his battered Saab lurching down the driveway.
"So how does your empty nest look now?" he asked, slipping his arms around her waist.
She stroked his beard and looked up at him. "There's something I have to tell you," she said.
Bill's back stiffened. "You're not pregnant, are you?"
"Oh, no," she said quickly. "It's not that. But we are getting a dog."
"That's okay, then," he said, nibbling on her ear.
Lucy wasn't sure he'd heard right, but she wasn't going to press the issue. "You know what?" she said, slipping her arms around his neck. "We've got the whole house all to ourselves."
"Darn," he said, pulling her closer. "Another boring Sunday afternoon. Nobody home. Nothing to do."
"Oh, I can think of something to do."
"You can?"
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