by Leo Bonanno
“Like what, Hunt?” Walters asked calmly. “What should I say that I haven’t said already?” I bound to my feet and slammed the cold table with my fist.
“How about you drop the act and tell everyone here that Mr. Freely’s story is nothing short of idiotic?” Thomas came toward me waving a finger.
“Now you listen here, Reevan-”
“No, you listen! Your idea is a robbery gone wrong, right? Well, what did the thief manage to get away with, exactly?” Thomas looked like a deer in headlights…my headlights. I looked up at him. His eyes were bouncing in their sockets. He didn’t answer, but Sills did. He had flipped back a few pages and was probably looking over the information given by Thomas not two minutes before.
“You said a few figurines, some crystal pieces. You mentioned a gold picture frame was taken from the mantel in the study before. McCune’s watch was gone from his dresser, and a silver letter opener with a diamond handle is also missing. Is that right?” Thomas nodded slowly.
“Detective Sills?” I asked. He turned to me. “Do your notes say anything specific about the crystal pieces that were missing?” He looked back at his pad.
“Mostly figurines. Oh and a crystal penholder that was sitting on the desk. That’s all I have.”
“That’s odd,” I said.
“What’s odd?” Thomas asked.
“No mention of a crystal clock.” Sills scanned the page once more, again found nothing regarding a missing crystal clock, and then started flipping through the other pages. I looked at Thomas. He had one hand in his pocket and another over his mouth. Then he wiped his brow with his arm, looked at me and spoke.
“You won’t find it in your pad, Detective. I didn’t tell you about the clock.”
“Oh?” Sills answered, still skimming, “And why not?”
“I didn’t tell you about it because it’s not missing. It’s on Wilson’s night table, exactly where it has been for the last decade or so.”
“So why the hell are we talking about it now?” Cheryl spoke up. She looked around at us through glazed and empty eyes. Her hair was frazzled. The sheer shrill in her voice drove Nona back to her corner.
“Because if it was right there all night, why didn’t the thief take it?” That was my Maddie. She looked at me and smiled. “Am I right?” I nodded. That’s my sis! my little voice shouted.
“Detective Walters, perhaps you would like to answer my sister’s question, unless you’d prefer I-”
“Thanks but no thanks,” he said. As he stood, he looked down on me, but I think it was only in the literal sense. He had the slightest hint of a smile on his face. You’re good it said. “Ms. Hunt, I think the reason the clock wasn’t taken is because there was no thief at all, or that’s what your brother thinks anyway.” I nodded. Richard spoke up next. With the exception of Cheryl, everyone seemed to be temporarily drowning their sorrows in bad coffee and a game of whodunit.
“What if there really was a robber and he just didn’t see the clock?” Richard pondered.
“You’ve seen it, haven’t you?” I asked, shocked by his question. “It was one of the first things I noticed when I walked in. That crystal ticker could put a kid through medical school. I honestly think that anyone who’s taking the risk of committing robbery would be sure to make it worth the jail time and go after that clock.” Richard nodded in agreement, as did Cheryl. Maddie gave her a rub on the back.
“Then it is true,” Cheryl declared blandly. “Dad was killed and the robbery was just a pitiful attempt to cover it up? I can’t take this!” Cheryl got up and walked briskly out and up the stairs. Maddie turned to me with a look of concern, then got up and followed the hysterical Cheryl.
“So what happens now?” Nona asked. “Do we have to leave?” She started tearing up.
“No, wait-” Walters couldn’t finish.
“Oh my God, Thomas? What will we do? I’ve been here for years. I have nowhere else to go. I can’t leave. Where will we go, Thomas? What will we do?” Thomas walked over and hugged Nona.
“Please, ma’am. All of you listen up. You ladies, too!” He shouted to Maddie and Cheryl who were descending the stairs, holding tissues no doubt retrieved from Maddie’s apron, where anything you needed could usually be found. “Now, as for the future of the McCune Estate, well, that’s for McCune’s will and the lawyers to decide. However, none of that happens until my investigation comes to a clean conclusion. As of now, this case is nowhere near closed.”
“But what happens to us?” The self-centered cow sobbed.
“Well,” Walters said, scratching his chin. “Y’all be sticking around here for a while.” A loud sigh of relief flew out of Nona’s mouth. Cheryl let out a sound that was much more…well, I guess you could say assertive.
“Like hell!” She screeched. “I’ll be at Lawson’s Inn on Route 33 if anyone needs me!”
“Same here!” Richard shouted.
“I’m afraid we’re telling you people, not asking you.” Detective Sills was standing up and putting his notepad into his breast pocket. Then he started for the door. Walters looked at him, obviously confused by his colleague’s last statement. Sills tapped his watch and nodded. Walters nodded. They were clearly finished for the time being. I sure as hell was not.
“Let me get this straight. You are ordering all of us to stay in a house where a man was murdered? What about protecting the crime scene? What about Lawson’s Inn? What about the fact that it’s really creepy?”
“I’m afraid we have no choice,” Sills answered. “Lawson’s Inn and every other inn, bed and breakfast, hotel and motel in town is booked solid through next week. Annual Spring Feast starts tomorrow. Tourists reserved their rooms months in advance to be there. As for the crime scene, our guys were here for a good few hours. I think we got all we could out of the main areas of the house, and since McCune’s room and study have nothing in them that concerns any of you right now, there’s no reason why anyone would go inside. This house is certainly big enough for all of you to steer clear.” He gazed up and around the foyer, up the staircase and back down to all of us. “Since we’re all faced with such an unusual situation, please note that several security devices were placed inside, just in case anyone gets a little…curious.”
“For goodness sake!” Maddie cried. “Might as well put a guard at the door.”
“Oh, there will be a guard, Ms. Hunt. Not at the door, but he’ll be around. He’ll be just outside the gate should there be any need for him.” I slipped off somewhere as Walters kept talking. I could still hear Walters speaking to the others, but I wasn’t really listening anymore. Somewhere inside the deeper recesses of my brain a light bulb flickered to life.
Walters and Sills had already made it to the door when I yelled “The hotels and the festival are just a convenient coincidence, aren’t they, Detectives?” The two stopped and turned. “We’ve all been through a lot here; a murder and an investigation, not to mention a family member is still missing. I think it would be best, especially for those of us here with minimal brain capacity,” I jerked a finger towards Thomas and Nona, “if you just came out with it.”
“Came out with what?” Walters asked, sounding tired and frustrated.
“Your theory,” I said. Walters looked puzzled.
“My theory is one very similar to Mr. Freely’s. Even you must admit that though his story had holes, it can’t be completely ruled out. Clock or no clock, a robber may exist out there in Wellington.” But I had ruled it out immediately. Thomas suggested that Wilson was bonked on the head and knocked out. I saw his body. There was no trauma to his head or face at all. Surely there would have been something like a mark, a red blotch, blood, something, but there wasn’t. Walters had surely seen the body before it was ever gift wrapped in that long black bag, and I’m sure he noticed that McCune’s skull was in showroom condition. Walters’ thought we were holding out on him about Donald and last night’s events. He was playing mind games to draw out some more information.
“That’s not true!” I shouted. “You’re not keeping us here because of the festival and the booked rooms because you don’t have the power to do it unless-”
“Unless we were suspects,” Thomas muttered quietly. “But you said my scenario still held water.”
“Oh, it does, Thomas,” I butted in, “but not enough to get us completely off the hook. Because we’re suspects, Walter’s here is trying to stop us from leaving, with a little does of house arrest, like we’re Martha friggin Stewart! He’s not responsible for this week’s festivities. The inns are booked and we are all stuck here like fish in a barrel and there’s a dead tuna floating belly up in here with us. Does that cover it, Chief?” Walters looked at me with both disdain and admiration. Sills was, all of a sudden, in a chatty mood.
Walters’ mood was definitely shifting. His face grew red and his frown wide. “If you’d rather I put you up at the Gray Bar Inn down at the precinct until we sort this out.” I breathed in deeply and put on a frown of my own, but said nothing.
“Please try to understand, all of you.” We listened patiently as the little man spoke and the big man stood in the doorway. “This investigation has only been open a few hours. At this point, everyone is a suspect. We still need to speak with the other staff members; I have all of their names right here,” he said, tapping his breast pocket. “Your brother is missing, Ms. McCune. He still has some explaining to do as well. Phone records will be checked and alibis will be corroborated. What we have here-”
“What we have here,” Walters blurted out, cutting off his partner, “is a whole lot a nothin! I’m staring at six people who haven’t given me one single clue all morning. You all slept through the murder of what was apparently a very loud man, and I’m not buying it for one damn second! You people were spread around this house last night, and Hunt here is the only one who mentioned Donald coming home drunk as a skunk. Where is he now? None of you know, there’s a shocker! Unless you folks start talking, this investigation could last a very long time. This state’s most prominent citizen is dead and this will be dragged out until someone is held responsible!” We stood glowering up at him. Even I was guilty of withholding information; the pill and the wet spot on Wilson’s rug. I’m sure someone else jotted it all down in a notepad somewhere my little voice spoke up, but it didn’t make me feel any better. They are professionals, you know? If a retired teacher found it, I’m sure a trained officer did too. The only difference is you put the pill in your pocket after you found it. I suddenly remembered I was concealing evidence in my pocket, and I gulped hard.
Maddie was guilty too. She lied when she said she’d been in bed all night. The big man had a point that couldn’t be ignored. “Mr. Hunt has my card,” he said flatly and walked out. Sills followed. As they walked, I heard Walters barked that he wanted to see the coroner’s report asap. Detective Sills was probably deaf as a doornail by then, but Walters kept screaming just the same.
I stepped forward and shut the door. When I turned around, everyone was looking at me like five sad puppies. “Now calm down, everyone,” I said softly, breathing deeply again. “Detective Walters seems like a very capable man. I’m sure he’ll realize we’re innocent when he speaks to the others. At least one of them is bound to be missing an alibi for last night and Walters will get to the bottom of it. Now, let’s all just relax and…and…” and what? The little voice asked. Go about your business, folks. There is nothing to see here. Get real. A father was dead. A friend was dead. A fixture in McCune Hall was gone. What was I supposed to say? I’m no priest. “…and do what you think is best for right now.”
Cheryl and Richard put an arm around each other and ascended the staircase slowly; their sobs grew softer as they climbed higher and higher. Thomas walked with Nona past my room and down to the end of the hall, where they made a left and disappeared. To the right was another staircase, obviously the one Richard used the night before during his midnight stroll. Maddie headed for her room with one hand over her forehead. I didn’t know what to do to be honest. I glanced at the clock in the dining room. It was a little past noon. I went to my sister’s room, knocked on the door and started asking questions.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’m still in shock, I guess. I always thought this kind of thing happens in movies and Agatha Christie novels and on the news. I can’t believe he’s dead, but I can’t even begin to comprehend something like murder. It’s just so…unreal.” My sister’s stoic state of mind was giving me the willies. Even more so was the fact that she hadn’t mentioned her late night constitutional. “How are you, Reevan? I can‘t believe this happened during the few days you were here.”
“I’m okay. I knew him, but not well enough to mourn like you. I guess I’m feeling a little bit like an outsider looking in.” Maddie nodded. I pressed on. “I know those pills really took you for a loop, but are you sure you didn’t hear anything last night?” She looked up at me from the bed. Her eyes shone of surprise. I wasn’t buying any of it.
“I said no, didn’t I?”
“Well yeah,” I said, treading lightly like a fly on one of those meat-eating plants. “But I think you’re [gulp] lying.” Maddie stood up very slowly. She came towards me quietly and then exploded, like a tornado touching down.
“Are you calling me a liar?” I started to shake my head, but to no avail. She was already set in motion. I had to think fast. “After all I’ve done for you! After the vacations here and the trips I took to see you when got too lonely in that big damn house of yours! After all the-”
“I looked in on you,” I said softly. I did not scream. I did not bellow. I didn’t shout. It just came out as plainly as the letters look in a book.
“-pain and…what? What did you say?” The anger in her eyes melted away. She looked scared. “When?”
“Last night, after Cheryl woke me up. I headed for my room but then popped my head in here to make sure you were okay. You were gone.” A very long, awkward pause followed. “Where were you Maddie?” Her eyes bounced around the room as if a plausible explanation was printed on the walls.
“Bathroom.”
“Excuse me?”
“I went to the bathroom, Reevan. For God’s sake, pills or no pills, when nature calls you answer or you’re put in an old folk’s home with the word incontinent stamped on your forehead.” I thought about it long and hard. It wasn’t going to fly.
“Bologna.”
“Like hell, it’s bologna! Who are you, the piss police?”
“Fine. What time did you get out of bed?”
“What?”
“What time?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Everybody does it, Maddie. If you get up in the middle of the night, you can’t help but look at your clock. What time was it?” Her eyes rolled up and her lips started to move. She was either trying to remember or trying to stall.
“It was 12:48.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, now I am. I looked at the clock when I sat up. 12:48, I’m sure.”
“I checked in on you around one last night. You were gone. I was awake in my room for a good five or six minutes before I fell back to sleep. I never heard you come back in. I didn’t hear your footsteps or your door close. What took you so damn long?”
“I don’t know, Reevan! I don’t always remember my stop watch when I use the crapper!” She turned away. She walked over to her bed and sat down again. Her chest rose and fell quickly.
“Tell me what you know, Maddie.”
“You don’t want to know what I know, Reevan.” I walked over to her and knelt in front of her. I grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look at me.
“A living, breathing man died last night because someone else wanted it that way. It’s not right, Maddie. Who are you protecting? What do you know?” She tried to shake loose and turn away but I held on. “What do you know, Maddie?”
“No, I-”
“Damn it, Madeline, start talking!”
After a long pause and fresh tears, she did.
“Richard,” she said, and it felt like someone dropping a bomb in my gut. My legs gave way and I fell backwards onto my rump.
“Richard? What about him?”
“I think Richard killed his father.”
“I did get up at around a quarter to one to go to the bathroom at the top of the stairs. If I use the one down here, it takes forever to stop the water from running and I can still hear it when I get back. Drives me crazy.
“I was in the bathroom when I heard you come out and start talking to someone in the kitchen. I was still woozy from my pills, and I couldn’t make out who the other person was. I guess it was Cheryl, like you said.
“I was in there a good fifteen or twenty minutes. What little I ate for dinner came back to haunt me, but I had to take the pills with food, so I did. By the time the nausea passed, I heard you say goodnight to Cheryl, or was it Nona? Anyway, I heard you walking down the hall.
“I left the bathroom and started down the stairs. Just then, Richard walked by. I didn’t think I would make it down the stairs on my own, so I whispered to him. He ran up the stairs and helped me down. When we reached the middle of the staircase, at least I think it was the middle, I asked him where he was going so late at night. He said he needed to speak with his father.” She brought the tissue up to her nose and blew. I held her hand firmly and urged her to go on.
“Now remember, I’m not sure how accurate this all is. I was flying as high as a kite last night. I’m pretty sure about the time though, and I’m pretty sure about almost everything Richard said. I asked him what he was up to and he said he needed to speak to his father. When I asked him why, he said he was too angry to sleep and he wanted his father to know how upset he was before he lost all of his nerve.”