Back To School Murder #4

by Meier, Leslie

  He looked up and Lucy decided he must be mad. His eyes were round and clear, his expression peaceful and innocent. “It was too bad but I was gonna lose her either way.”

  Suddenly, the bedroom door flew open. Lucy and Quentin stared in amazement as a glittering vision in turquoise marched into the room.

  “Ah-ha!” exclaimed the landlady, waggling a finger at Costas’s back. “I hired you to cut the hedges, not to stand around talking!”

  Costas turned, showing her the gun. Her eyes widened in shock and she started to scream. Deciding she might never have another opportunity, Lucy gathered all her strength and threw herself at Costas. She knocked him off his feet, and as they fell to the floor, the gun went off.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “What happened then?” asked Miss Tilley, shoving her wrinkled face right into Lucy’s.

  Lucy slid back in her seat in the high school auditorium, where she was waiting with the rest of the family for the annual talent show to begin. Toby was in the show, performing the rap song he had been practicing with Lance.

  “Well, when the gun went off, the neighbors called the police. That wasn’t much help to me, however, because it took them at least ten minutes to get there and I was struggling with an armed man. That landlady wasn’t any use at all—she just kept screaming. Fortunately, Quentin was able to work himself free and helped me. We had Costas neatly tied up when the cops arrived.”

  “All’s well that ends well,” said Miss Tilley. “But you had an awfully close call. I hope you’ll be more careful in the future.”

  “I will,” promised Lucy, feeling she had done something wrong. Miss Tilley often made her feel that way. It didn’t matter that she had solved a murder and proven Josh Cunningham’s innocence, never mind the fact that her profile of Carol Crane and her account of Costas’s confession as published in The Pennysaver had been picked up by the wire services and printed in papers as far away as San Francisco. When scolded by Miss Tilley, she always felt like a little girl caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

  “Look,” said Lucy, pointing to a couple seated a few rows in front of them. “It’s Josh, and he’s with Sara’s teacher, Ms. Kinnear. They make a nice couple, don’t they?”

  “I was terribly upset when they charged him,” said Miss Tilley. “He always impressed me as one of the system’s finest teachers.”

  “The kids love him,” agreed Lucy, opening her program and looking for Toby’s name. After a bit, she resumed the conversation. “I’m a little surprised you came tonight. I wouldn’t have thought a high school talent show would have much appeal for you.”

  “Nonsense,” snapped Miss Tilley. “I have always taken a great interest in the youth of the town.”

  “So you have,” admitted Lucy, nevertheless convinced that Miss Tilley must have had a compelling reason to attend the show. Like many older folks, she rarely went out in the evening anymore.

  “What are your plans for the future?” demanded Miss Tilley, studying her closely. “Will you be taking any more courses at Winchester College?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Lucy. “They’re too expensive and Ted has asked me to work twenty hours a week at the paper.”

  “That should be interesting.”

  “I think it will work out fine,” said Lucy. “Full-time was really more than I could manage, but twenty hours should be just about right.”

  “I was a little concerned about you,” said Miss Tilley.

  “Really? Because I was working?”

  “No,” said Miss Tilley, placing a wrinkled hand on Lucy’s arm. “Because you were taking that course from Quentin Rea. His field is really the Elizabethans—he doesn’t know his Victorians very well at all. I once commented to him about Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s ‘dear little Pen’ and he didn’t realize I was talking about her son. She called him Pen, you know.”

  “I know,” said Lucy.

  “Well, Professor Rea didn’t. He actually said it was likely that her pen was the same size as everyone else’s!”

  Miss Tilley slapped her knee and cackled merrily; she loved nothing better than exposing someone’s ignorance.

  “I thought he was a bit shaky on a few points myself,” said Lucy, unable to resist adding, “but he did give me an A.”

  “Are you sure it was for your course work?” asked Miss Tilley, grinning wickedly.

  “What else?” asked Lucy, indignantly raising her eyebrows.

  “One hears things…”

  “One should know better than to believe everything one hears,” said Lucy self-righteously. She glanced over at Bill, who was sitting beside her, and was relieved to see he was busy going over the program with Sara and Elizabeth. Zoë was snoozing in his lap. “Although I must admit you were absolutely right about DeWalt. It’s too bad he didn’t stick around to face the music. I bet Judge Ryerson would have locked him up and thrown away the key.”

  “I think he was planning to leave town pretty soon anyway,” said Miss Tilley. “Word of those prayer sessions was getting around, and there was talk that most of the missionary fund had disappeared. Some members of the congregation were getting a bit suspicious.”

  “Well, Zephirah seems to be doing a terrific job. I heard the Revelation Congregation has really changed since she took over. She’s started a ministry for single mothers, and is leading a study group about women in the Bible.”

  “Oh look!” said Miss Tilley, standing and craning her neck. “There she is!”

  “Who?” asked Lucy, twisting her head to see the back of the auditorium.

  “Norah!” Miss Tilley’s ancient face had taken on a pinkish glow. She was even smiling.

  “Norah?” asked Lucy, getting up and looking toward the entrance, along with everyone else in the auditorium.

  “Norah Hemmings—the queen of daytime TV,” hissed Miss Tilley. “Surely you’ve heard of her.”

  “Of course I have,” said Lucy. “I even watch her show once in a while. But what is she doing here in Tinker’s Cove?”

  “Recuperating,” chimed in Dot Kirwan, who had been sitting nearby. Now she was on her feet like everyone else, hoping for a glimpse of Norah. “She’s recovering from liposuction and some other plastic surgery. I read she had a complete makeover and has been in seclusion while she recovered. No interviews—no photos. She’s been staying in her family’s place out on Smith Heights Road.”

  Lucy remembered the night she took Lance home and he insisted on being dropped at the foot of Smith Heights Road even though she offered to take him to the door.

  “Don’t tell me she has a son with her?” asked Lucy.

  “She does,” said Dot. “His name is Vance or something.”

  “Lance?”

  “That’s it, Lance. He’s a nice boy, even if he does have one of those rings in his nose.”

  Looking around the auditorium, where everyone seemed to have suddenly become members of Norah’s fan club, Lucy wondered how she could have been so dense. Everyone in town seemed to know all about the famous star’s presence, everyone except her and Ted, and they were the very ones who should have known. How did they miss such a big story?

  There was a smattering of applause and Lucy saw Norah herself standing in the doorway. The star’s newly trim figure was encased in a shiny red vinyl jumpsuit that zipped up the front. Her hair was arranged in one of those deceptively casual styles that only work when cut by a master. Her smoothly sculpted face betrayed no wrinkles, sags, or bags. She was smiling, an enormous smile that revealed dazzling white teeth.

  “She looks wonderful,” cooed Miss Tilley, star-struck.

  “It won’t last,” predicted Dot, who was a grandmotherly size 18 and not about to diet. “Give her six months and I bet she’ll be back in her fat clothes.”

  All eyes were on Norah as she made her way down the aisle, accompanied by two anonymous companions who faded into drab insignificance beside her radiance. After a brief consultation, they chose seats a few rows from the
front. The three sat together, with Norah in the middle.

  Then the lights went out and the audience began clapping, in anticipation of the show. The curtain did not go up, however, and after a few moments the lights were back on. The audience responded with a groan.

  Mr. Mopps soon appeared on the empty stage, and was greeted with cheers and stamps from the rowdy high school students. Sara couldn’t resist jumping to her feet and joining in the applause. He gave the crowd a little wave, adjusted the microphone, and gave a signal to someone offstage. Once again the lights went out, and this time the show began.

  Lucy thought Miss Tilley was paying rather a high price for a glimpse of her favorite TV personality, as she endured seemingly endless amateur acts, badly performed by the town’s youth. Becky Flynn tumbled across the stage in a series of gymnastic flips, Elizabeth’s friends Melissa Burke and Emily Anderson tottered about in their toe shoes in a dance duet, and Eddie Culpepper played a squeaky “Minute Waltz” on his violin for what seemed to be a very long minute.

  Finally the moment Lucy had been waiting for arrived, and the curtain rose on Lance and Toby. Dressed identically in baggy black jeans and shiny sports jackets, with woolen watch caps pulled down over their heads, they struck casual poses and waited for someone offstage to start the music.

  When a rap beat began thumping out, they began to bounce on their knees in time with the music. Gradually, with gestures and dance steps they began acting out the story described in the song, in which they were rivals for a girl’s attention. When Alison Crowley, the police chief’s daughter, appeared on stage as the girl, the crowd applauded enthusiastically.

  As Alison twisted and gyrated her hips to the music, Lucy wondered what Chief Crowley thought of her outfit—baggy silk pants, a tube top, and a chain around her waist. Alison was adorable, however, and when she shook her finger at the boys and strolled offstage alone, rejecting both her suitors, she brought down the house.

  After the show, Lucy and Bill took the kids backstage to congratulate Toby on his performance. He was standing with Lance, and Norah was generously lavishing attention on both of them.

  “Weren’t they fabulous?” she asked, flapping her fake eye-lashes at Bill.

  “They sure were,” agreed Bill, somewhat dazed to be chatting with a TV star.

  Lucy reached in her handbag and pulled out her camera.

  “Do you mind?” she asked.

  “Not at all,” said Norah, flashing her signature smile.

  Lucy snapped the picture, not quite believing her luck.

  “By the way,” she said, “I happen to work for the town newspaper. It’s only a local weekly, The Pennysaver. Would you let me interview you, for just a very little story?”

  “Of course,” exclaimed Norah, throwing open her arms and engulfing Lucy in a perfumed hug. “Anything for Lance’s friend!”

  Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of

  Leslie Meier’s newest Lucy Stone mystery

  ST. PATRICK’S DAY MURDER

  now on sale at bookstores everywhere!

  PROLOGUE

  The last customer hadn’t left the bar until nearly two a.m.—well past the eleven p.m. closing time mandated by the town bylaws in Tinker’s Cove, Maine—but that didn’t bother Old Dan very much. He’d never been one to fuss about rules and regulations. No, he was one who took the inch and made it a mile. If they wanted him to close at eleven, well, they could jolly well send over a cop or two or ten and make him. Though he’d be willing to wager that wouldn’t go down well with the clientele. He chuckled and scratched his chin, with its week’s worth of grizzled whiskers. That crowd, mostly rough and ready fishermen, didn’t have a high regard for the law, or for the cops who enforced it, either. No, close the Bilge before the customers were ready to call it a night, and there’d be a fine brouhaha.

  And, anyway, he didn’t sleep well these days, so there was no sense tossing out some poor soul before he was ready to go, because, truth be told, he didn’t mind a bit of company in the wee hours. He knew that if he went home and to bed, he’d only be twisting and turning in the sheets, unable to calm his thoughts enough to sleep.

  That’s why he’d started tidying the bar at night instead of leaving it for the morning. The rhythmic tasks soothed him. Rinsing and drying the glasses, rubbing down the bar. Wiping the tables, giving the floor a bit of a sweep. That’s what he was doing, shuffling along behind a push broom to clear away all the dropped cigarette butts and matches and dirt carried in on cleated winter boots. He braced himself for the blast of cold and opened the door to sweep it all out, back where it belonged. But it wasn’t the cold that took his breath away. It was a bird, a big crow, and it walked right in.

  “And what do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, feeling a large hollowness growing inside him.

  “You know quite well, don’t you?” replied the crow, hopping up onto the bar with a neat flap of his wings. The bird cocked his head and looked him in the eye. “Don’t tell me an Irishman like you, born and bred in the old country, has forgotten the tale of Cú Chulainn?”

  He’d not forgotten. He’d heard the story often as a boy, long ago in Ireland, where his mother dished up the old stories with his morning bowl of oats. “Eat up,” she’d say, “so you’ll be as strong as Cú Chulainn.”

  He found his mind wandering and followed it down the dark paths of memory. Had it really been that long? Sixty odd years? More than half a century? It seemed like yesterday that he was tagging along behind his ma when she made the monthly trek to the post office to pay the bills. “’Tisn’t the sort of thing you can forget,” he told the crow. “Especially that statue in the Dublin General Post Office. A handsome piece of work that is, illustrating how Cú Chulainn knew death was near and tied himself to a post so he could die standing upright, like the hero he was.”

  “Cú Chulainn was a hero indeed,” admitted the crow. “And his enemies couldn’t kill him until the Morrighan lit on his shoulder, stealing his strength, weakening him.…”

  “Right you are. The Morrighan,” he said. The very thought of that fearsome warrior goddess, with her crimson cloak and chariot, set his heart to pounding in his bony old chest.

  “And what form did the Morrighan take, might I ask?” inquired the bird.

  “A crow,” he said, feeling a great trembling overtake him. “So is that it? Are you the Morrighan come for me?”

  “What do you think, Daniel Malone?” replied the crow, stretching out its wings with a snap and a flap and growing larger, until its great immensity blocked out the light—first the amber glow of the neon Guinness sign, then the yellow light from the spotted ceiling fixture, the greenish light from the streetlamp outside, and finally, even the silvery light from the moon—and all was darkness.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Maybe it was global warming, maybe it was simply a warmer winter than usual, but it seemed awfully early for the snow to be melting. It was only the last day of January, and in the little coastal town of Tinker’s Cove, Maine, that usually meant at least two more months of ice and snow. Instead, the sidewalks and roads were clear, and the snow cover was definitely retreating, revealing the occasional clump of snowdrops and, in sheltered nooks with southern exposures, a few bright green spikes of daffodil leaves that were prematurely poking through the earth.

  You could almost believe that spring was in the air, thought Lucy Stone, part-time reporter for the town’s weekly newspaper, the Pennysaver. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Part of her believed it was too good to be true, probably an indicator of future disasters, but right now the sun was shining and birds were chirping and it was a great day to be alive. So lovely, in fact, that she decided to walk the three or four blocks to the harbor, where she had an appointment to interview the new harbormaster, Harry Crawford.

  As she walked down Main Street, she heard the steady drip of snow melting off the roofs. She felt a gentle breeze against her face, lifting the hair that escaped from her
beret, and she unfastened the top button of her winter coat. Quite a few people were out and about, taking advantage of the unseasonably fine weather to run some errands, and everyone seemed eager to exchange greetings. “Nice day, innit?” and “Wonderful weather, just wonderful,” they said, casting suspicious eyes at the sky. Only the letter carrier Wilf Lundgren, who she met at the corner of Sea Street, voiced what everyone was thinking. “Too good to be true,” he said, with a knowing nod. “Can’t last.”

  Well, it probably wouldn’t, thought Lucy. Nothing did. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy it in the meantime. Her steps speeded up as she negotiated the hill leading down to the harbor, where the ice pack was beginning to break up. All the boats had been pulled from the water months ago and now rested on racks in the parking lot, shrouded with tarps or shiny white plastic shrink-wrap. The gulls were gone—they didn’t hang around where there was no food—but a couple of crows were flying in circles above her head, cawing at each other.

  “The quintessential New England sound,” someone had called it, she remembered, but she couldn’t remember who. It was true, though. There was something about their raspy cries that seemed to capture all the harsh, unyielding nature of the landscape. And the people who lived here, she thought, with a wry smile.

  Harry Crawford, the new harbormaster, was an exception. He wasn’t old and crusty like so many of the locals; he was young and brimming with enthusiasm for his job. He greeted Lucy warmly, holding open the door to his waterfront office, which was about the same size as a highway tollbooth. It was toasty inside, thanks to the sun streaming through the windows, which gave him a 360-degree view of the harbor and parking lot. Today he hadn’t even switched on the small electric heater.